Rumour Has It
by FictionIsSocialInquiry
Summary: The Blue Spirit begins appearing in proximity to rumours of the Painted Lady. She cleans a polluted well and the sickness it caused in a tiny coastal town. The very same night, a crate of rice and cured meat wrapped in flame embossed bamboo appears by the well. It is said, the Blue Spirit is hunting the Painted Lady. Or that he's under her spell. In a way, both are true.
1. Chapter 1

**Rumour Has It**

 ** _Author's Spiel Up Front_** **. This is going to be quite Zuko/Katara-centric, with sprinkles of plot. If you're here for plot… well, you can make a game out of searching for it. Squint really hard and you'll find some _somewhere_ I'm sure! Unlike previous stories that I've taken my sweet-arse time finishing *cough* _Mending Wounds *cough*_ this one is more or less all written; I'm just editing and fiddling behind the scenes. So the wait times should be minimal— woo hoo!**

 ** _Divergences From Canon_** **. For dramatic, author-related purposes, when the Blue Spirit rescues Aang from Zhao's prison in Book One, Aang did _not_ see his true identity.**

* * *

 **The Word on Spirits I**

'He's definitely Water Tribe.'

'How would you know?'

Sokka dangles the wanted posted in his sister's face. 'His mask is a blue _water_ demon. How is that anything other than Water Tribe?'

'He's only ever been seen in the Earth Kingdom, Sokka.'

Her brother waves away her words. 'A cover.'

The Blue Spirit leers at Katara from the page. 'He's wanted by the Fire Nation,' she reads, chopping beans for dinner. 'I don't care where he's from, that makes him okay in my books.'

Sokka turns the poster over, examining the thin figure. 'I need a cool vigilante alter-ego,' he sighs.

Katara snickers as she adds parsley to their meal. 'You've got more than enough ego, Sokka.'

* * *

 **The Word on Spirits II**

Lieutenant Jee has a soft spot for Midshipman Sora. Maybe that's why the boy brings him news from port first. Maybe that's why Jee is the first to hear of the Blue Spirit.

'He broke the Avatar out of the Admiral's prison?' Jee is astounded. The _nerve_ of this Blue Spirit… the man must be made of iron and fire.

Sora's excitable. Like a puppy. He loves an underdog. 'The town crier said the Yu Yan archers shot him; a clear shot to the head! But when Zhao's men went to find him… nothing!'

The boy is mistaking a man for a spirit.

Jee lets him. Their superiors — with the exception perhaps of General Iroh — are entirely uninspiring. Careless, prideful old men that let mountains of boys die for their war. But this Blue Spirit? The man is mysterious. He's powerful. He slips wraith-like from the authorities. He obviously has great honour and stands boldly for his principles.

Here is someone boys like Sora can look up to with pride.

* * *

 **The Word on Spirits III**

After meeting the Blue Spirit himself during his time with Admiral Zhao, Aang joins Sokka's obsessive hero-worship of the masked man.

'He could be an airbender,' Aang speculates wildly. 'You should have seen the way he moved! All _swish! Swoosh!_ '

Sokka taps the creased wanted poster tartly. 'Blue water spirit.' He taps his tunic. 'Blue Water Tribe.'

Aang scratches his head. 'But not everything blue is Water Tribe, Sokka. Think of the creeping crystal candy that Bumi trapped you in. That was Earth Kingdom.'

Sokka flaps the poster at Aang. 'He's not just Water Tribe blue,' the warrior crows, flexing his arms. 'He's also very manly.'

'He was kind of… man-like,' Aang agrees, puffing out his chest.

Katara merely shakes her head in dismay.

* * *

 **A Lady of the Night I**

Midshipman Sora bows as he enters the Fire Prince's rooms.

'What is it, midshipman?'

'The men retrieved our correspondence from General Shinu's outpost, my prince.'

Zuko glances up from the map before him. 'Any word from my father?'

The man hesitates. 'No, my prince.'

Zuko grunts, scowling at a map of the Southern Earth Kingdom. 'Proceed.'

'There is a navy-wide call to confiscate and destroy any anti-Firelord propaganda, the usual recitation of your esteemed father's victories, wanted posters. A larger reward is being offered for that Blue Spirit—' Zuko's lip twitches '—and there's a new one… fifty gold pieces for the Painted Lady.'

The banished prince frowns. 'Who?'


	2. Chapter 2

**The Meeting of the Blue Spirit & the Painted Lady I**

The village of Makapu is peaceful. Its volcano lays dormant— so says Aunt Wu— and the inhabitants keep clean streets and tidy houses. There's little crime and rarely disturbances, the exception being when Fire Nation patrols stop to resupply.

The local patrol is headed by Colonel Mongke, the former leader of the Rough Rhinos— it's complicated, he doesn't like to talk about it— who delights in exacting a tax for his services. Of not burning down the village. Extortion, some would call that.

Which brings us to the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady.

Both of whom thought to relieve Colonel Mongke of his weapons, his mount, and, should it become necessary, the Blue Spirit plans to gift the colonel with a few new scars.

What they didn't account for was a companion on the mountain path leading to Mongke's camp.

* * *

 **The Meeting of the Blue Spirit & the Painted Lady II**

They narrowly avoid running into one another with a great deal of wheeling limbs, hissed curses, and veil flapping. She startles the Blue Spirit so badly, he draws his dao swords and promptly drops the left one.

And then the whole width of the dirt path is between them.

'The Blue Spirit,' the Painted Lady whispers, and beneath her cloak of mist and shadows her heart beats a military tattoo.

He says nothing of course, but she heard his muffled curse and knows there must be a human mouth behind the scowl he wears.

The Blue Spirit is the first to break the standoff. He retrieves his fallen sword and raises it in an exaggerated arc. Here are my weapons, he wills the hooded figure to understand, I mean you no harm. Like syrup, he sheaths them.

Both back away, never turning their backs.

It occurs to Zuko that this Painted Lady, at least, is no more a spirit than he is.


	3. Chapter 3

**A Lady of the Night II**

Former-General Iroh begins the practice of gossiping about the Painted Lady, much to his nephew's irritation.

'She is said to be a maiden spirit of great beauty,' the esteemed general confides to Lieutenant Jee over tea. 'Her hands heal all but a broken heart.'

Jee sees the prince approach before the old man does.

Iroh is besotted. 'A spirit so inspired and passionate that she journeys all the way from the Fire Nation…'

'Uncle!' His nephew's scowl is as bitter as the boy's tea. 'Stop romanticising enemies of the Fire Nation!'

Jee and Iroh are silent until the boy's footsteps recede.

'Gyao spoke to a fisherman who saw her. He said she has hair like river sand but smooth like water bubbling over rocks,' Jee whispers.

Iroh positively beams. 'There's something to be said for strong, beautiful women with long flowing hair, lieutenant.'

* * *

 **A Lady of the Night III**

General Iroh hears of the Painted Lady's visit to the village mere moments after they dock.

'It is very auspicious, my nephew,' he tells Zuko as they disembark. The prince-in-exile doesn't care. He wishes his uncle would bother someone else with his spirit signs and portents. 'Very auspicious, indeed.'

Zuko bites his tongue as anger trickles like sand into his gut; he cannot tell the foolish old man that the fugitive impersonating the river spirit is just some woman. Iroh is far too savvy a gossip. He would soon figure out that it was the Blue Spirit who stumbled across his favourite vigilante. And after the mess of freeing the Avatar from Zhao's prison, he couldn't afford to link himself with the masked fugitive.

A shadow looms, sideburns and smug derision.

Zhao sneers down at the young prince.

 _Not so auspicious, uncle_ , Zuko thinks bitterly.

* * *

 **A Lady of the Night IV**

'She's obviously just trying to steal the Blue Spirit's thunder.'

Sometimes, Katara's idiot brother has opinions too stupid for words.

She tells him so. 'Did you learn _nothing_ from the Kyoshi Warriors, Sokka?' Katara asks with no small amount of exasperation. 'Women can be fighters too.'

But Sokka has caught sight of Princess Yue, dignified and silent in her canoe on the canal.

Aang smiles brightly. 'I think the Painted Lady sounds even better than the Blue Spirit,' he quips, spinning through the air to balance on a balustrade of ice. 'She steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I like her!'

Katara's grin will not be contained. 'Me too, Aang.'


	4. Chapter 4

**Interlude I**

There is a siege on the Northern Water Tribe and not a soul reports sighting Spirit or Lady. The Avatar, it is said, single-handedly destroys an entire Fire Nation naval fleet. Word is, the commanding officer— Admiral Someone-or-Other— died while murdering the Water Tribe's heiress.

Few express sorrow over such a man's demise.

Rafts of survivors, withered and worn, wash up in the following weeks on the shores of the Earth Kingdom. Brought south by the North Sea currents, the dead and the living find the generosity of simple folk through home cooked meals and solemn burials. No one discriminates between a naval uniform or fur trimmed parkas.

Word spreads that the Fire Princess is abroad.

Rumour has it that she attempts to capture a pair of disgraced nobles.

* * *

 **Interlude II**

The reward for the Painted Lady has risen again. She has crippled a munitions factory in a northern colony. Only the Blue Spirit commands as hefty a price. He has burned the contents of a major Fire Nation communications tower. The Crown Princess's personal correspondence is destroyed in the fire.

The Blue Spirit begins appearing in proximity to rumours of the Painted Lady. She cleans a polluted well and the sickness it caused in a tiny coastal town. The very same night, a crate of rice and cured meat wrapped in flame embossed bamboo appears by the well. Valleys of sword strokes and kisses of ash adorn the rough pine crate.

It is said, the Blue Spirit is hunting the Painted Lady. Or that he's under her spell.

In a way, both are true.


	5. Chapter 5

**Coming Together I**

They meet veil-to-mask for the second time in the rain. This gives the Painted Lady the confidence to pause. To cast her eye more thoroughly over her colleague— of sorts.

He grips the same twin swords. One, he points at her.

The moon is two nights away from being full; she silently dares him to try it.

'Are you following me?' she asks haughtily, slowing the teaming rain just enough that it glimmers around her.

He drops his arm a fraction before jabbing the blade towards her again.

A water drop falls from the tip of the raised blade. Dozens of its cousins patter on the bare, muddy dirt. 'I don't speak Aggressive Hand Gesture.'

The blue mask, growling fangs and severe brow, is somehow indignant.

'Can't you talk?'

A curt head shake, no. The sword falls to his side.

'You've been helping me,' she accuses. 'I hear rumours of food turning up after I've visited a village. Or corrupt officials kidnapped and given to the townspeople's justice… is that you?'

The smallest nod, as though enabling autonomy in the downtrodden is of no consequence. All in a day. Don't mention it.

Under the red face paint, Katara's expression softens. 'Thank you,' she says earnestly and decides to take a chance. 'Tomorrow I'll be ten miles south of here.'

Nod.

'I hear there's a group of ex-soldiers, deserters, terrorising the farmers and their families.'

Dual swords twirl in a single tight circle.

'I don't know how many there are.'

The Blue Spirit taps his chest twice.

'You'll scout it out?'

Nod.

'I'll meet you by the road, the northernmost point of the province.'

Nod.

Katara smiles and tilts her head back to better appreciate the silent mystery before her. He is elbows and knees. Slender but distinctly male.

He is unmistakably dangerous.

It takes the smallest twist of her wrists to turn the spring rains to a thick, coiling fog. 'Tomorrow then.'

He doesn't try to follow the Painted Lady despite the unease— like the movement of a shadow in his eye's corner— stirring dimly in his gut. The mist is a neat trick but the Painted Lady is vaguely, distantly familiar.

* * *

 **Coming Together II**

A bird call from the brush by the roadside announces the Blue Spirit.

He is not alone.

Fear is bright in the bandit's eyes. He's straining, faintly pleading through his gag, but his bent knees and knotted wrists barely shift.

She stills her disquiet. 'Is this one of them?'

The demon's face bobs once in the gloom and he hauls the quivering man to his feet.

It takes very little violence, almost none at all, to ascertain the highwaymen's hideout and the name and description of his leader. Katara is secretly pleased; although she is no stranger to the blood and bruises of war, she certainly doesn't relish them.

They approach the cave low and silent, under the cover of night and the vagabonds' raucous conversation. There is a skeleton by the entrance and a warning etched into the rough stone above the cave mouth: _The Deadman's Hideaway_.

The Blue Spirit offers her his hand then points up the cliffside.

The Painted Lady shakes her head and takes a running leap; she shimmies up the trailing root of a fig that is slowly growing down the sheer rock wall. It's a perilous journey. Made harder by her dress; she briefly regrets making it so long. It's no easy climb, but they both slither into the high opening in the rock wall with nothing more than a light graze to show for their troubles.

Perhaps that's why their quarry, the shabbily dressed man in stained robes, appears so shocked to see them.

* * *

 **Coming Together III**

Jan Wei is a cowardly man. Then again, most bullies are. No man of bravery or honour marauds around the countryside, preying on innocent families and cultivators of the land.

'Please, don't kill me,' Jan Wei whimpers as the stench of urine permeates the air. 'Please! I'll do anything!'

They haven't even accosted him yet. The Painted Lady glances at her silently intimidating companion and sees the merit in their working together.

'Do you know who we are?' she asks the shivering figure in a hoarse voice. It sounds like corpses being dragged over stone and the low gurgle of a dying river, the furthest thing from her daytime cadence.

Jan Wei nods, the whites of his eyes gleaming. 'The—The Painted Lady,' he squeaks before swallowing and turning to the masked figure at her shoulder. 'And the Blue—the Blue Spirit.'

The Painted Lady nods with finality. 'Then you know why we've come,' she snarls, stepping forward and reaching for the little specks of water in the air. She pulls them close to Jan Wei, makes him sweat and gasp in the sudden humidity. 'You and your men will leave the folk of this land in peace. You may remain if you work honestly and serve the community, but if we hear of you harming a single grain of rice in the fields of these farmers…' she bends at the knee and billows straight, sloshing the wet air around the frightened man's face. 'We will show you no mercy.'

Jan Wei whimpers but nods compulsively. 'Yes, Mighty Lady, we will!'

Katara backs away from the horror in the man's eyes. A fear she has planted there, and now watches take root. She releases the water in the air and lowers her chin. Has she gone too far? Is it wrong to intimidate such a pitiful person?

The Blue Spirit slinks forward; no. This man has killed innocents and destroyed lives.

He deserves far worse.

'Remember your word, Jan Wei,' she rasps as the Blue Spirit draws his twin swords. 'We won't forget. And we won't forgive.'

The Blue Spirit slashes at the bandit leader, one sword either side of his face until the man crumples into tears.

 _Enough_ , the Painted Lady thinks, withdrawing to the window. 'Come,' she calls quietly, turning from the quivering bandit to the long climb back down to earth.

* * *

 **Coming Together IV**

They disappear from the Deadman's Hideaway like smoke on the wind.

The Blue Spirit has released their captive bandit by the time the Painted Lady makes it back to their rendezvous by the roadside. He sits beneath a worn boulder and watches Yue's slow rise above the far mountain range. Not a sliver of skin peers around the horizon of his clothes. No strand of hair or knuckle or scar.

Perhaps he truly is a spirit.

He starts at her approach, jolted from some deep trailing thought, lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

The Painted Lady becomes Katara as she wonders what sort of thoughts would leave the silent hero so spooked.

'Thank you for your help,' she smiles. Is he returning her grin behind that mask?

The Blue Spirit doesn't move. He seems to stare right through her.

She's a little surprised by his silence. Despite his muteness, the swordsman hasn't before been shy of expressing himself. She finds his stony stillness disconcerting.

'I'm moving on,' she tells him, just for something to break the quiet. 'Heading further south.'

The Blue Spirit gives her nothing.

Katara takes a step backwards, disappointed somehow. 'Well, I hope I see you again,' she mutters, her cheeks heating in embarrassment at what is obviously a one-sided sentiment. 'Thanks, Blue Spirit.'

Katara turns.

Katara leaves.

* * *

 **Of Scars & Honour**

Zuko watches the Avatar's waterbender turn her back to him— _strike now!_ — and begin to walk away. He glowers at her for ruining the Painted Lady. How _dare_ she assume the identity of a Fire Nation spirit when she is some filthy peasant from the wasteland to the south?!

Really what bothers Zuko, but what he is unable to admit, is the conflict this raises in his dual nature. Good and bad are always at war within him. The Painted Lady is good. The Painted Lady _was_ good. She _was_ an ally in his anger towards his sister and father. He could don the mask and win small victories, an almost dizzying salve to his frustrated search for the Avatar.

The Painted Lady has become part of this.

Until now.

The waterbender. That southern _peasant_.

What is her name? Katana? Katara?

Zuko strains to see her retreating figure even in the brightness of this moon. He's torn between stalking her back to the Avatar, capturing the boy for good, or letting her go. Not for anything so generous as friendship, no. Zuko is considering the wisdom of continuing their charade of vigilantism, learning more from the girl before striking.

The night swallows the waterbender and the Blue Spirit furiously kicks a clod of dirt, turning his face to the sky to silently demand why it always tests him so cruelly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Huge thanks to everyone who's reviewed, favourited, followed, and lurked thus far! I'm sure every other fic author would agree: getting review literally light up your day and motivate you to finish stories! This one is currently 26,000 words with maybe another 6,000 to go. Reviews help me know there are people out there who want the story to finish so feel free to keyboard smash, send emojis, or write up 10 Point Plans for what you liked and what could have been done better** **—** **I welcome it all!**

 **Also: this story is also available on Archive of Our Own (AO3) under the same title and author's name! Enjoy :D**

* * *

 **Rumour Has It I**

' _Don't fall in love_

 _with a travelling girl,_

 _she'll leave you broken,_

 _broken hearted!_ '

The last notes dribble through the air around the nomad's campfire.

'Oh, man.' Chong's pipa leans back against him, almost tauntingly. 'We gotta write a song about that Painted Lady.'

His wife's flute glints in the fire. 'She's the journey,' Lily agrees, a slow smile crawling over her face. 'She _knows_ things, you know?'

'She sure does, turtle-dove.' Chong blinks slowly as he inhales leisurely from his pipe. 'Okay, okay… something's coming to me.' His pipa twangs as he searches for the root note...

' _Painted Lady!_

 _Painted Lady!_

 _Through the mountain!_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted Lady!_ '

Moku claps against his djembe, sheer delight playing over his face. 'It speaks to me,' he gushes, eyes bright. 'It's like my soul recognises it.'

Chong puffs again at his pipe. 'Right on, man.'

* * *

 **Oma & Shu I**

There was once a woman named Oma and a man named Shu who belonged to two warring villages divided by a mountain. The war threatened to keep them apart, but their love was strong. They found a way to continue meeting: they learned earthbending from the badgermoles that dwelt in the mountain. With the power of their bending, they were able to carve out elaborate tunnels and meet secretly.

This went on for some time until one day when Shu was killed in the war between their people. Devastated by her lover's death, Oma unleashed the terrible power of her earthbending, but instead of destroying those who had killed her love, she declared the war between them over.

'And so together both villages helped her build a new city where they would peacefully coexist.' The Painted Lady smiles and the crimson curls on her cheeks gleam. 'And that's how Omashu came to be named. Oma and Shu. Omashu.'

The Blue Spirit keeps to her side, his gait smooth and stealthy over the moonlit desert of the Western Earth Kingdom. He thinks of wars and death and what the loss of loved ones can drive a person to do: to abandon a six-hundred-day siege, to claim a brother's birthright, to shatter a mountain and end a war.

Beside him, the painted waterbender sighs— like a girl, not the warrior he knows— and looks up at the moon. 'Can you imagine having the power to end the war? To help in amongst all this suffering?'

His dao swords are sheathed now, cleaned of the night's blood, but he gestures to them, to her.

'We help?' She cocks her head at that but hears truth somewhere in the silence of his answer. 'I guess you're right.'

* * *

 **Oma & Shu II**

The Painted Lady looks into the moonlight and Zuko can see visions of her Oma and Shu dancing in her eyes. A figure with the waterbender's long dark hair and a crimson robe atop a mountain with a man in blue robes and a warrior's top knot.

She has shared this Earth Kingdom peasant's story with him and now its distracting him from her identity, what she is: his key to the Avatar and his ticket home.

'Thanks again for your help tonight,' she says, turning away from her contemplation of the moon. 'Those refugees would have starved on their way to Ba Sing Se if you hadn't found that army supply garrison. I'm sure those Fire Nation soldiers won't miss a few days rations.'

 _Traitor_ , his sister's voice whispers in his ear.

Her smile is his departing gift. She raises her hand too, an encore. 'Will I see you tomorrow night? South of here?'

The Avatar is still heading south. He nods stiffly and joy spreads like a virus across her face.

'See you tomorrow then!'

He watches his prey get away and can't help but berate himself for staying rooted to the earth. _Tomorrow_ , he promises himself. _Tomorrow_.

The thought steals into his mind like a draft under a door: unwelcome and uninvited. _Oma and Shu also waited for tomorrow and one of them ended up dead_.


	7. Chapter 7

**Rumour Has It II**

Mai flicks the report onto the desk before Azula. 'That Blue Spirit again,' she drawls, watching Ty Lee walk around the room on her hands. 'And it looks like you're not the only one who's got friends.'

The princess's brow is severe at the best of times. Now it shadows Azula's shrewd gaze. 'The Painted Lady,' she reads sourly, absorbing every scree of information the report could offer. Any weakness she could use to destroy these enemies of her father. 'Common people are so easily impressed. River spirits, blue spirits; they're fools for believing in such things.

Ty Lee flips gracefully to her feet. 'I bet he's handsome,' she coos, clutching her hands together under her chin. 'I bet they're secret lovers, fighting hand in hand!'

'Against your people,' Azula cuts in smoothly, sparking the governor's report into flames. 'Enemies of the Fire Nation do not go unpunished.'

* * *

 **It's Rough in Chin I**

The Rough Rhino's have been active around the Earth Kingdom's south-western provinces. They're favourites of Zuko's father. Not officially. No, the Firelord does not indulge the petty skirmishes of mercenaries but Zuko grew up in the palace and knows better than most what word reaches his father's ears. He knows the delight Ozai takes in—

'Watch out!'

The Painted Lady sends a tsunami over his head, knocking the oncoming war rhino off course, its horn inches from skewering the Blue Spirit through his heart.

He doesn't have time to react to the nearness of his death. The city of Chin is burning under his countrymen's flames and it's all he can do to keep the burning low with his breath. He dare not firebend, not here, not in front of the girl of water.

* * *

 **It's Rough in Chin II**

The Painted Lady is the one who truly routs the Rhino's. Her water whips cut like knives and her anger at them— fuelled by the town's _ludicrous_ treatment of Aang earlier that day— is sharper still. She is the wind and driving rains of a storm the mercenaries cannot weather. Not with her masked companion dancing nimbly beside her, swords as sharp as her water.

As the final rhino disappears into the gloom of the night, she turns to him in that special, buoyant joy that comes after the pulse-racing of battle. She could jump ten feet in the air, or summon a tidal wave, or… or…

She grins wider than the crescent moon and throws her arms around her companion's neck. 'We did it!'

The Blue Spirit is stoic as always, silent and stiff, but he nearly died and it is _she_ who saved him. The towns people are venturing out of their homes now, voices raised, fingers pointing, some climbing rooves to put out fires.

She can celebrate later. 'Come on,' she whispers in his ear, drawing back to flee into the forests at the town's edge.

* * *

 **It's Rough in Chin III**

Zuko watches her ahead of him, weaving— agile and graceful— through the trees and yet… it doesn't feel like a chase. He catches up with her but he doesn't capture her.

 _I'll save you from the pirates_.

 _She is a waterbender_ , he reminds himself, _enemy to the Fire Nation, aiding the Avatar_. And then because those reasons feel tired and as full of holes as Azula's first and only attempt at weaving: _she is water and water cannot mix with fire. One will always extinguish the other._

He slows then, lets her pull further and further away; he doesn't chase, and he doesn't capture. _Tomorrow_ , he swears. _Tomorrow_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Rumour Has It III**

'The Blue Spirit's alright, if you like drama queens in theatre masks.' Toph picks her feet with a single-mindedness like no other. 'Sure, he can swing a sword, even _you_ can wave around that toy you call a weapon, Snoozles. But the Painted Lady, now _she's_ where it's at!'

Sokka is practically writhing in indignation. 'It's a _boomerang_ and the Blue Spirit isn't a drama queen! He's a man, a manly man, who fights with manly honour!'

'He steals stuff and knocks heads. Cool.' Unimpressed. Toph is very good at being unimpressed. 'The Painted Lady is more big picture. She brings down whole munitions factories! She cures the sick and dolls out justice to bandits!'

'The Blue Spirit helped her with that!'

Toph sniffs her foot. 'Don't get me wrong, she sounds like a real stuffed-shirt. I wouldn't want to know her personally—' Katara's lip twitches '—but she's got lady balls.'

Sokka has a ten-point defence for why the earthbender is wrong.

* * *

 **Zuko Alone**

He tells himself it's easier without his uncle but both he and the ostrich horse know it's a lie. The ostrich horse because it is she who must carry him hard miles during the day to keep on the Avatar's trail, Zuko because he wears himself thin with a waterbender at night. Long miles and longer nights are a potent enough cocktail to suspending the guilt lingering around an uncle abandoned on a roadside.

He tells himself: _Tomorrow. I will capture her and force her to take me to the Avatar tomorrow_ a dozen times. He tells himself he is serving his Fatherlord as he cuts down Earth Kingdom men turned to villainy in a country at war. He tells himself _careful_ when the waterbender laughs at his pecker-crow shrugs or that one time he offered her his water skin when hers was ice buried in the body of rapists and murderers.

Zuko tells himself a lot of things. Without his uncle, few of them contain much truth.


	9. Chapter 9

**Coming Apart I**

 _This will be the last time I meet with you_ , the note reads. The character strokes are penned by a hand accustomed to ink and parchment.

'You're leaving?' Her shoulders slump and the high of their recent success raiding a Fire Nation militia falters; water down a drain.

Nod.

'Why?' There's a fragility to their alliance. It is delicate and tense for reasons she doesn't understand. She wants to understand.

The Blue Spirit looks away up the road, over the hills, far away.

'Blue…'

He turns back towards her. It looks unwilling.

'I wish I could know why,' she sighs but like much with the Blue Spirit, she is left unsatisfied. Curious. Frustrated.

He shrugs and stares at his feet.

Does he care? Has he not enjoyed their time together? The things they've done, the people they've helped… 'I'm going to go north, to Ba Sing Se.' He glances at her sharply. 'There are people after me, me and my friends. You could come with us.'

He backs away three steps, then eight. He may as well have drawn his swords on her.

* * *

 **Coming Apart II**

It needs to stop. Tonight. No more tomorrows. _Tonight_.

She is blurring things that are certain as stone.

Water is the element of change. Given enough time, water will wear away at the mighty boulder. Wash it away to nothing but sand.

But now she is inviting him to come with her to Ba Sing Se.

He is alone.

He left his uncle weeks ago.

It would be so easy…

'I'm sorry.' She's apologising to him. Again. It occurs to Zuko that he's never apologised to her for tying her to that tree, or stealing her necklace, or knocking her down in the North Pole.

This is why it needs to stop. Tonight.

He shakes his head— wishing he could say goodbye, no matter how false the words would taste when he was mere days from catching up with the Avatar— and turns to leave.

Her dress brushing the grass sounds like the wind through treetops. He is torn between turning to defend himself and the cursed dissatisfaction. Curiosity. Frustration.

So he stays still.

And let's her embrace him.

His _enemy_.

'Thank you for all your help,' her breath would tickle his neck were it not covered. 'I'll miss you.'

He is stiff. He cannot return the embrace.

But he does.

This needs to stop. Tonight.

When he turns suddenly to leave, he can tell he's hurt her.

His father's voice resonates with everything he doesn't want as it jeers from the darkest corners of his mind.


	10. Chapter 10

**Interlude III**

Azula's pursuit.

When she sees Prince Zuko kneeling in the dirt, bent over his uncle, Katara's heart aches but she doesn't think of the Blue Spirit.

Aang's earthbending training. The library. Losing Appa. The Si Wong Desert. Suki. The Serpent's Pass. Azula's drill. The walls of Ba Sing Se.

-o-

Pursuing Azula pursuing the Avatar.

When the Avatar's waterbender offers her help, he thinks of the glowing touch of the Painted Lady's hands. But she blurs lines drawn in stone. Makes them weather away to sand.

So he shoots fire at her.

Uncle's injury. Redirecting lightning. The shanty town on the edge of a desert. The Order of the White Lotus. The ferry. Jet. The walls of Ba Sing Se.

* * *

 **Interlude IV**

It is said the Blue Spirit is first seen in Ba Sing Se on a cloudy night, one that shrouds corruption and secrets. He favours roof tops, and gables. All the better to see you with.

He perches, crow-like, and waits for the Dai Li agent to leave the building. It advertises itself as a tavern and inn, but the exchange of coin between low and mid-tier city officials and women scantily clad gives the Blue Spirit some clue as to his quarry's activities this evening.

The man takes bribes— protection fees, he calls them— from the stall holders nearby the tea shop where Lee and Mushi work.

The Dai Li, the Blue Spirit is quickly learning, are no more than well organised thugs.

Here comes the thug in question.

It's almost too easy for the Blue Spirit to follow him, using shadows to hide as effectively as his mask hides his face.

The Dai Li have not encountered the Blue Spirit before.

This man will never encounter him, or anyone else, again.

* * *

 **Interlude V**

It is said the Painted Lady is first seen in Ba Sing Se down in the slums that serve as an infirmary for the refugee quarter. No one would call it a hospital. It is barely a building.

Infection is the biggest killer in this place.

Knife wounds, bending wounds, malnourishment, sickness, disease, fever, burns, cuts, lacerations… mere footnotes to infection's narrative.

The Painted Lady is woozy.

She's spent herself in this leaky hovel of the dying.

She barely registers the smell now.

 _One more_.

She bends to a child, breathing through a rattle and pale as the moon. Her hand's glow eases the child's breathing and grant his cheeks something approaching colour.

As she stands to leave, the infirmary tilts and tumbles with her dizziness.

A hand catches her hem by the door.

'Painted Lady?' a broken woman croaks. There is almost nothing in her eyes; they're craterous things. The will for life, to live, is all that is left of her.

The Painted Lady crouches by the woman's side. _One more._


	11. Chapter 11

**I'm overtly breaking drabble length here. Naughty, I know. But, as the benevolent dictator of this story, I shall shake it up as I see fit! This ain't no democracy, kids.**

 **It's Been a While**

The houses are jammed together like prisoners of an overcrowded gaol in Ba Sing Se's lowest tier. They cluster, their backs turned to the cold winds that whip down over the wall. Crooked, narrow stone stairways wind between them. Blood stains more than a few of these ancient walkways.

Now the Blue Spirit's blood stains one right by the great inner wall of the city.

His assailants— he's bitter about that; _he_ was meant to be _their_ assailant— have him backed into a corner, dao swords flaring. His blood might splatter the steps, but theirs runs in rivers down his twin blades.

As they approach, two with knives, he thinks grimly, _at least the girls got away_.

Beyond his assailants, another girl is approaching.

A Lady.

Her water whips boldly through the night, knocking all three gangsters to the ground. This is not the Lady of subtle fog and humidity. One man doesn't rise. The other two flee at the sight of scarlet face paint and billowing robes.

 _I had it_ , he thinks viciously. But beneath the mask, Zuko is smiling.

The Painted Lady directs her liquid limbs to wrench the unconscious man from the ground and freeze him to one side of the cramped alleyway.

The Blue Spirit wipes his swords against his tunic— it's covered in his own blood anyway— so he can sheath them. If she wants to greet him with an embrace, he wants to be ready.

But tonight she is tundra, not the tropics.

'You came,' she notes, studying him from toe tip to masked grimace.

He doesn't answer. He doesn't need to.

'You're bleeding,' she realises and all at once she thaws.

 _For nearly a quarter of an hour now_ , he wants to tell her.

'Quick, sit down.' Water rears over her shoulder, ready.

He sits and rolls up his sleeve, gingerly. He's struck by how sickly pale his skin is beside the honey glow of hers. It's cinnamon spiced cream next to a bowl of milk. Water Tribe beside Fire Nation. She would know now. Perhaps not for sure, but she would be able to guess. Only the nobility of the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation are pale as the moon.

'Ouch,' she mutters, wincing her empathy.

He's oddly gladdened. _It doesn't hurt that much_.

'What were you doing fighting three guys?'

He leans his head back against the wall and sighs. She hears that. Gives him a stern look.

'So you won't talk to me, but you'll fuss at me!'

He tilts his head at her, incredulous now. He points to her probing fingers just in case she's missed the irony.

'Shut up,' she mutters under the breath. But a smirk tugs at her lips, unwilling and beautiful for it.

He settles back against the wall and shuts up.

'It's good to see you, Blue,' she confesses, like a secret between fast friends. No one else in this city knows she's happy to see him.

He nods and points to her. _You, too_. But her coerced smile clouds with a frown. She doesn't understand. _It's good to see you, too_. He rests his free hand on her arm for just a moment, watching her carefully.

The colour in her cheeks is brighter than all the fireworks at the New Year Festival in the Fire Nation.

But the glow of her hands hides the blush, like an eclipse.

And just like that, his arm tingles and is whole once more.

'Done,' she tells him, easing his blood-stained sleeve back down until it kisses the hem of his glove. 'Though I think your shirt is ruined.'

 _I don't care_.

'What do you want to do about him?' The frozen lump stirring faintly.

 _Leave him to me_.

She looks to him searchingly. 'I'll just let him go.'

 _I'll take care of it_.

But all she hears is silence. So she turns to leave.

'If… if you're around for a few days, meet me here tomorrow night, just before the midnight bell. There's a group of elderly refugees being bullied out of their rations down by the train tracks.'

He nods eagerly.

Her smile lingers like fireflies in summer.

It's only after she leaves that Zuko realises the Avatar must also be in Ba Sing Se.

* * *

 **For His Destiny**

It's on the rooftop of Pao's teashop, moments before he slips into the room he shares with Uncle, that Zuko remembers why he left her back on that dusty roadside. She is water. She blurs her clear edges of "enemy" and makes it hard for him to remember why it is he wants the Avatar.

To return home? Would his father even have him? The question terrifies Zuko in a way that leaves him bare, like a thirteen-year-old's pale skin under a fist of flames. Would capturing the Avatar be enough anymore? Zuko glances inside and catches his uncle smiling, even in his sleep. The old man wouldn't want to leave the city and their jobs as tea servers.

To regain his honour? His standing among his people, his position, his pride. They don't feel as compelling as they once did but Zuko is nothing if not disciplined. His shoulders straighten with the weight of a thousand Firelords before him.

For his destiny.


	12. Chapter 12

**Coming Together Again I**

Music is playing from the tavern across the street.

' _Painted Lady!_

 _Painted Lady!_

 _Through the mountain!_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted,_

 _Painted Lady!_ '

The Blue Spirit's mask doesn't change expression, but beneath it Zuko rolls his eyes. Earlier, while eating dinner as Lee with a girl of greens and browns, some travelling band of musicians sung of the Blue Spirit taking the Firelord's throne.

Zuko's soup fast lost its appeal.

Now, a girl of blues and scarlet approaches and the song is less real. Just a memory.

'New shirt?' she reaches out to test the new fabric against her fingers.

He shrugs. _It's just a shirt_ , but her touch tickles.

'Come on.'

He does.

* * *

 **Coming Together Again II**

War makes murderers of matchstick makers.

And thieves of teachers and tailors.

The men robbing the vulnerable and isolated, the victims of displacement, are not monsters. These are people with families who are on the brink of starvation. They have hungry mouths with wide, pained eyes that are never full. Their skin shows bone. Their faces are gaunt. And this war will never, ever end.

These men are victims of circumstance.

But they are no less dangerous because of that.

* * *

 **Coming Together Again III**

Some of the thieves must have seen some time in the army. They have swords and daggers, some are earthbenders. They have weapons and most of them know how to use them.

One of the men— there are more than they'd expected— pulls a knife from his boot.

The Blue Spirit sees the man spin to the Painted Lady's turned back. He cannot get to her. Three of the thieves' swipe to keep him at bay.

The knife is about to leave the man's hand.

'KATARA! GET DOWN!'

The words fly faster than knives and blows.

She turns towards him. And the knife flies wide.

But her eyes are wider.


	13. Chapter 13

**The Voice of the Blue Spirit I**

Katara can't tear her eyes away from the left side of the Blue Spirit's head.

They're darting down deserted alleyways, ducking under low eaves, and she's stumbling more often than not because the Firelord's son is the Blue Spirit.

But she's following him away.

Why is she still following him?

They stop to rest in the shadows of a boarded-up bathhouse and Katara can no longer pretend to be anything other than the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe while the Blue Spirit peers around the corner, checking for pursuit. He does that a lot, she realises, looks over his shoulder. Though for what, she's not sure.

* * *

 **The Voice of the Blue Spirit II**

'You know who I am, don't you?'

His voice makes her jump. She realises she's become accustomed to her masked companion's silence.

He's standing like the banished prince; why has she never noticed before? The confident squaring of his shoulders, the wide and ready stance. She is sure his eyes are narrowed in a disdainful glower behind the mask.

As though he can read her thoughts, as though to prove her wrong, he tugs at the ribbon holding up the mask. Prince Zuko's eyes are wide. His brow is tense but not drawn downward into a scowl. He is shame and humility.

He is waiting for her to leave him.

* * *

 **The Voice of the Blue Spirit III**

'I can't believe you!'

'Let me explain!'

'Was this all just some elaborate plot to get your hands on Aang?! Your big chance to finally capture the Avatar?'

'No! Well maybe, at first, the thought might have crossed my mind but—'

'You're disgusting!'

'It's not what you think! I wanted to help people, like you do. I wanted to—'

'I don't want to hear it!'

'I could have followed you home! A dozen times or more, I could have followed you back to your camp and taken him. But I never did!'

'You hunted us across the world! You _did_ take him from me! At the North Pole!'

'…'m srry.'

'What did you say?'

'I'm sorry! I'm sorry for hurting you, when we fought in the North Pole.'

'Do you even understand why it hurts me? Do you know what you nearly took from me?'

'I, er, didn't know it was like that between you two.'

'You don't know anything.'

'I apologised, didn't I?!'

'You don't know anything, Zuko.'

* * *

 **Cooling Off**

The Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady don't see one another the next night.

Or the night after.

He hears of her. There are whispers on balconies and wisps of fog coil around noodle bar stools. Red paint marks street corners. Rumour has it she found a new hospital site for sick refugees.

When he does see her, she is tundra once more. Frozen, ancient ice.

'It's worse than it being you,' she hisses at him, when he catches up with her. 'You've stolen my friend. It's like you killed him.'

The mask feels silly between his fingers, he wishes he hadn't taken it off. 'I am your friend.'

She narrows her eyes at him. 'I tried to be your friend. I offered to heal your uncle after Azula shot him!'

'I'm sorry.' He says it again and again without knowing why. He should scald this peasant for talking to him the way she is. 'Katara, I'm sorry.'

For the first time, there's a crack in the ice. 'The worst part is I actually miss him.' She hates the admission. 'I miss my friend.'


	14. Chapter 14

**How are we liking the update schedule? Three updates a day, morning-noon-night. *Holds up a begging tin for reviews* Author has done well, yes?**

 **Leaves from the Vine**

There is a zen garden kept by the monks of the Lower Ring's west temple. It is a quiet place, rarely frequented these days, not with starvation, displacement, and war turning people away from the spirits.

It is sunset when Katara visits the garden with crimson paints in her satchel. She needs some time, some space, away from the grimy city and its even grimier secrets. It's seedy underbelly… she cannot stomach it just now.

But here, with the winds in the grass, the lone tree atop the hill… there is peace.

And a man.

As she rounds the base of the hill, Katara sees an old man kneeling beneath the hilltop-tree before a small shrine— nothing more than a scrap of parchment and a few offerings on an old tea towel. A stone drops heavily into her stomach at the familiar grey beard and kind eyes.

He lights two sticks of incense and sets them in the holder. 'Happy birthday, my son.' The words float down to her on a cold breeze as the sunset stains the old man orange. She almost doesn't believe her eyes: there are tears on his face. 'If only I could have helped you.'

The old man hasn't seen her yet so Katara leans back behind the stalks of bamboo to her right, peering around them at the lonely figure on the hill.

His song shakes like autumn leaves falling to the ground to die.

' _Leaves from the vine,_

 _Falling so slow._

 _Like fragile tiny shells drifting in the fold._

 _Little soldier boy,_

 _Come marching home._

 _Brave solider boy_

 _Comes marching home._ '

No matter the old man's allegiance, no matter the crimes of his nephew, Katara feels the weight of his grief in the lump in her own throat. Slowly, she backs away into the bamboo and leaves the old man to his sunset tears.


	15. Chapter 15

**With Friends Like These I**

She agrees to Zuko's plan. Enough food to feed the infirmary patients for a month? She could hardly disagree, no matter how haunted she is by hilltop tears, puckered scars and confused golden eyes.

He talks of liberating food and sending gangsters back to their holes. He tells her about coercing an education minister to agree to more funding for schools in the Lower Ring. She imagines the man's terror reflecting in wooden blue and white.

He asks nothing about her brother, her earthbending friend, her Avatar.

But of her, he is painfully curious.

'Where did you first hear about the Painted Lady?'

She is stone and icy ocean. 'Does it matter?'

'She's a Fire Nation river spirit.'

'She's whatever people need her to be.'

* * *

 **With Friends Like These II**

They ferry food from the storage sheds by the inner wall to the infirmary for untold hours of darkness and hissed conversation. The Painted Lady is proud because she is able to deliver two more bags than the Blue Spirit. The Blue Spirit has let her.

He's not sure why, but he does.

On rooftops, they run. Fleet footed and winged in the waning light of the moon. Below are the streets that wind like black veins through the city. They are dirty. They are narrow. They smell of generations of the same families struggling to get by.

The Painted Lady points this out, angrily. _It's your fault_ , she say.

'I know,' he tells her, when she finishes lamenting the state of the city. 'The inequality here is disgusting.'

Katara can't help herself. 'Oh, like your city is _so_ much better!'

The Blue Spirit shrugs.

* * *

 **With Friends Like These III**

'These programs for the poor… they work?'

'Of course they work. We wouldn't allocate money from the treasury if they didn't.'

The Painted Lady is sceptical. 'What about orphans?'

The Blue Spirit hasn't removed his mask. 'It's not perfect. It's something I'd like to look into fixing if I ever end up becoming Firelord.'

'What about victims of the war?'

'The Fire Nation has… a certain responsibility for them that my father doesn't recognise. That's something else I'd like to change.'

She watches him for fire, for that tell-tale sign of his lies and deception. 'The Blue Spirit makes amends to the victims of the war.'

The Blue Spirit's mask is unreadable. 'He tries.'

The Painted Lady stands and begins to walk away. 'He does more than try.'

* * *

 **With Friends Like These IV**

The Blue Spirit follows her.

But not for the Avatar. No, he tries not to think of the Avatar.

The Blue Spirit wants to make sure she gets home safely.

But she catches him somewhere in the Middle Ring.

'I'm not trying to capture the Avatar!' he blurts out when he runs into her. He begins to take his mask off— to show her his earnest honesty— but thinks better of it. The mask is the face she trusts, after all.

The Painted Lady's expression is unreadable when she reaches up to untie the mask and pull it from his face. Her gaze follows the blue and white.

She bites her lip.

He's watching it— that narrow strip of pink held captive between her teeth— when her gaze flicks up to his. She eyes his scar, frowns at it as though it's a particularly challenging bending form she's striving to master.

'Meet me tomorrow,' she says at last, though her every word speaks of trepidation. 'Under the monorail by the wall between the Lower and Middle Rings.'

The mask is thrust into his grip and she is walking away, but Zuko feels bright as the flame he wields. She's invited _him_. Not the mask, not the Blue Spirit. _Him_.


	16. Chapter 16

**This chapter is dedicated to reeroy who has not only left amazing reviews on this story, but has sprinkled them throughout others I've written! You, sir/madame, are a legend 3**

* * *

 **Working Together I**

Beneath the earth pillars that hold the train tracks up amongst the rooftops, Zuko thinks of the Firelight Fountain that an Earth Kingdom girl showed him. But in his daydream, the brown eyes of the girl are now blue.

The Painted Lady arrives not long after the first patrol of the Night Guard appears between shop fronts.

'Did you hear about the new arrivals?' are the first words he's met with.

He nods. 'I know where they live.'

She blinks, puzzled. 'You know where they are?'

He gestures down the road. 'On the east side of the track, over the canal. The men who robbed the new refugees were in a tea shop nearby,' he explains.

Katara tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. 'Thank you. I've been trying to find out all afternoon.'

As she passes him, he smells something that reminds him of summer days, cool water in the heat. He shadows her down the street. 'You're welcome.'

* * *

 **Working Together II**

'Are you staying long? In Ba Sing Se, I mean.'

She glances down, her thoughts still among the stars. 'I'm not sure. It depends...'

'On the Avatar?'

She nods, looking back at the moon. Their rooftop thrusts them up into the sky while they recover from their exertions. The men they sought hadn't given in without a fight.

Between them, the Blue Spirit's mask stares blankly upwards.

'You saved Aang from Zhao,' Katara mutters, frowning at the stars. 'Back before the siege on the Northern Water Tribe… Why?'

Zuko takes a deep breath and releases it with the truth. 'I wanted to capture him for myself.'

'For your father?'

'To get my honour back.'

That draws her stare. 'I don't understand you,' she sighs but Zuko doesn't hear the regret in her tone over the slight to his culture.

'I lost my honour by insulting my father in front of his generals. The Avatar is how I regain my honour and my throne.' But disbelief has clouded her face. 'It's unacceptable for a prince of my nation to be without honour,' he tries to explain.

Silently, she turns away from him again.

* * *

 **Working Together III**

The next night, the Blue Spirit brings a satchel when they meet in their usual spot.

'More weapons?' she asks, dropping into step beside him.

'Tea,' he admits, clearing his throat. 'Last night, on the roof, I thought it would be nice if we had something to drink.'

The Painted Lady stops mid-stride. 'Tea?' she clarifies, wishing the mask didn't hide the firebender's expression. 'We're not really the sort of people who would drink tea together.'

She regrets her words straight away.

The Blue Spirit drops his hand from the satchel and continues stiffly down the road.

Behind him, Katara clutches her skirt so tightly her knuckles turn white. 'I'm sorry,' she calls softly, following the rigid figure more slowly.

At the next street corner, he dumps the satchel in the bins by the wall.

* * *

 **The Tale of Toph and Katara**

'That wasn't so bad. I'm not usually into that stuff but I actually feel... girly.'

Katara takes the opportunity to beam at the younger girl, all her childhood dreams of a sister fluttering teasingly before her. 'I'm glad,' she says honestly. 'It's about time we did something fun together.'

'Hard to do much with you these days.'

'What do you mean?'

Toph's milky eyes slide slyly towards her. 'I mean with you being up half the night and sleeping in almost as long as Snoozles. Makes it hard to get any Katara time, or so Twinkletoes tells me.'

Katara feels her newly pampered face change colour faster than a rabaroo's bound. 'You guys know I've been sneaking out?'

'Just me. You'll find I'm a _very_ light sleeper.'

Katara takes a moment to find an acceptable excuse. And then another. And another.

'I… um.'

'You've been going for walks? To clear your mind?' Toph provides breezily, the rouge on her cheeks creasing with her wicked grin. 'I'll roll with that story around the others, Sugar Queen, but in return I want _details_. Who's the guy?'

'Guy?!'

'The one's you're sneaking out to neck with. Spill it.'

A strange kind of horror takes her over then. Horror at the image that the younger girl's words conjure: of Zuko's lips and the secret skin she's only caught glimpses of that hides beneath his sleeves and hemlines. It's not the first time she's found herself thinking of it, of him, his _boyness_ , but it's certainly the first time in broad daylight. That's where the strangeness comes in: she's absolutely, without doubt, fixated by it.

'It—It's not like that,' she tells the earthbender in a tone of brittle shale.

Toph, it seems, is not convinced.

* * *

 **Working Together IV**

Zuko ignores the tea box at her hip when she arrives on the rooftop by the bridge the next night. His mask is on, but his crossed arms and tense spine speak volumes; whole tomes of hurt and confusion and anger.

Silently she sits beside him and draws the pot, tea leaves, spark rocks, kindling, and water canteen from the bag. Bending water into the little ceramic pot, she adds a slapdash handful of tea leaves and tries unsuccessfully to strike a flame.

Wordlessly, the Blue Spirit tugs off his gloves and holds out his hand.

The Painted Lady offers the teapot.

Neither of them acknowledges the way he covers her hands with his to take it, or how long she waits to let it go.


	17. Chapter 17

**The Bazaar**

Aang leads her by the hand to the Lower Ring flea markets, swearing on Momo's life that they are renown across all nations for their culture and diversity, or at least they were a hundred years ago. Stallholders from all over the Four Nations make their way to Ba Sing Se for the annual bazaar, selling everything from "authentic" Air Nomad robes and Fire Nation jasmine rice to charms that protect against disease, a supposedly genuine lion turtle skull, and a strange bubbly alcohol called beer.

There's a secondary crowd gathering a ways off, an official of the city is making an announcement. The sheer mass of humanity in the crowded plaza is overwhelming.

'Katara, look!' Aang is pointing wildly at a woolly otter bison penned on the edge of the bazaar.

However, the official from the dias has just brushed past them and Katara is more interested in what she overhears him muttering: '...ransfer Long Feng's scholarship for that flea-ridden orphanage to our benefactor, Shin Xu. Make sure it happens before tomorrow morning.'

A wicked grin curls Katara's lips, a grin that has very little to do with otter bison.

* * *

 **Working Together V**

The official's name is Long Mao, senior undersecretary to the mayor of the Middle Ring of Ba Sing Se. Long Mao has been embezzling since coming to his position four years ago. Long Mao is now wondering if it has been worth the Blue Spirit's sword against his throat.

The Painted Lady is terrifying enough. 'P—please! I'll tell you anything! Do you want to know about Mayor Wang's secret expense reports? Or—or where the army surplus tanks have been sent?'

'We're more interested in the diverted scholarship fund, Long Mao. And we already know where you sent it.' Her gravelly voice speaks of corpses tangled in river weed. 'What we need to know, is if you will return it to its intended recipients with or without your skin intact.'

The Blue Spirit shoves the thin man back against the alley wall. 'Yes! Okay! Yes, of course I will! I just need to retrieve the package from my assistant! He is due to take it to Lord Xu in the morning!'

The Painted Lady smiles in a way that only serves to unnerve the shaking man further. 'You have until tomorrow evening, Long Mao,' she hisses, retreating slowly down the alley as mist climbs around her. 'Or else I won't be able to help you when my friend here finds you.'

The Blue Spirit slashes at the man's fine embroidery and knocks him to his knees.

When Long Mao looks up in terror, the alley is empty of Lady and Spirit.

* * *

 **The Secrets of Tea and Friendship I**

The Blue Spirit turns to leave when they disappear from the alley with the corrupt official, but Katara directs them to the rooftop by the bridge.

At her hip, is the tea box.

'Have you been to the bazaar?' she asks him as his hand heats water in the small jade pot. 'The one in the Lower Ring plaza?'

He shakes his head, he has not.

'Aang took me today.' She smiles at Avatar-filled memories and the teapot boils and hisses. She takes it from him, adding dried nettle and licorice root. 'There were a whole bunch of Fire Nation things there. Have you had mango before?'

He scoffs. 'Of course.' He grew up a prince, after all.

Her eyes widen. It stretches the swirls of crimson over her cheeks. 'I had my first one today. They're incredible!'

Zuko can almost taste the sweet orange flesh down the years. 'I haven't had one since before I was banished.'

Katara hands him the rough ceramic tea cup. With a grin of sunshine, she draws the mango she saved from the tea chest and it glows like a second moon in her hands.

* * *

 **The Secrets of Tea and Friendship II**

Another night, another pot of tea. But this time they've yet to go looking for someone to fight. The night is wearing thin and it's just about the time they usually part ways for the comfort of their beds. But they haven't taken up mask and paint in battle yet.

Both of them are aware of this.

But Katara is talking about her favourite memories from childhood and Zuko is reciprocating so neither of them even spares a glance for the streets below. Let alone suggests venturing from their perch of tea and whispers.

'What's the Fire Nation like?' she asks him, drunk on the facets of the prince hidden behind his scar. 'When it's not waging war against the world.' It has only recently occurred to her that the nation of fire was once more than a warmongering monster.

The firebender rarely smiles but when he does she always wishes he would do it more. 'Warm,' he answers her, back home in his memories. 'Loud, even in the forests and villages. Cicada-hoppers sing all summer. And there's water everywhere, especially after a summer storm.' His eyes slide towards her from distant shores of fire. 'You would probably like it.'

She shrugs and sips her white tea. 'Doubtful,' she lies.

* * *

 **The Secrets of Tea and Friendship III**

'Ginseng is my uncle's favourite.'

Katara cradles her cup in both hands. 'It's my Gran Gran's favourite, too, when we can get it from the Earth Kingdom traders.'

The mask lays a few feet away. Only the night air swirls between them.

'Back home, they have fruit teas and spiced teas and teas that you drink iced.' Zuko splays his hands on the roof tiles between them. 'My uncle bought some from a black-market dealer. Fire Nation teas.'

She studies her hands. 'Your uncle is here too?'

'Yes.'

'...And your sister?'

He glances at her sharply. 'Not that I know of.'

Katara nods slowly, shifting her position. 'Did he recover okay from her attack? Your uncle, I mean.'

'He's fine.' Zuko stares at the grey slate under hand and the waterbender's fingers just inches beyond his. 'I should apologise. For shooting fire at you… and the Avatar, that day. When you were trying to help.' The words stick and trip, as though caught in syrup.

When she looks at him, the waterbender has eyes of fire. 'It's okay.'

* * *

 **A Plan**

'I should probably get going.'

'Oh, yeah.'

Guiltily. 'We'll, um, have to actually do some work tomorrow night.'

'Right.'

'Well. Thanks for the tea.'

'You brought the tea.'

'But it was your idea first, the other day, before I… thanks anyway.'

'You're welcome.'

'You know, um, maybe after we work we could… I mean, I know this place where we could get tea.'

'Oh.'

'Or, you know, dinner.'

'Oh…'

'Only if you want to.'

'You want to get… dinner. With me?'

'Forget it, it was a stupid idea.'

'No! Er, no, it's not stupid. That sounds… good.'

'Good?'

'Yeah, you know… fun.'

'Fun… Okay. So, I'll, um, see you tomorrow?'

'Yeah.'

'Goodnight, Zuko.'

'Goodnight, Katara.'


	18. Chapter 18

**Rumour Has It IV**

Iroh thinks he will die a happy man if he can see his nephew happy. Happy the way he was once happy as Crown Prince. Happy as he was once happy with a wife who loved him. Happy as he was once happy with his newly born son weighing gently in his arms.

He wants that for his nephew.

It is for this reason he doesn't probe about the boy's nightly activities. He found the mask weeks ago and has heard the rumours of the infamous Blue Spirit appearing here in Ba Sing Se. Iroh is no simpleton: he knows his nephew is running nights with the Painted Lady. He has hope then, when the boy sneaks in stealthy as the moon, of his nephew finding the happiness that has eluded him thus far in his short life.

The boy has always needed a cause to believe in.

Perhaps a feisty woman, his equal in every way, could be a cause for happiness.

Rumour has it the Dragon of the West has gone soft in his old age. Let them talk. The Dragon of the West knows that no joy is found in the quest for power. Let them talk and let boys fight bad men on rooftops with pretty girls.

Destiny is a funny thing, after all.

* * *

 **Short one tonight, folk, but to make up for it, tomorrow morning's is a doozy! A lil taster: the drabbles feat. zutara!datenight... they're called _The Meeting of Zuko and Katara_ ;)**


	19. Chapter 19

**The Meeting of Zuko & Katara I**

At a food court, in the Middle Ring, in the hours just before midnight, a boy and a girl without masks or paint sit side by side at a noodle bar. They each try only to think of night and not the dawn, when the confusions of Avatars, invasions, and loyalty to nation eclipse the simple joy of friendship. There are travelling musician's playing down one of the alley pubs that feed into the plaza. Lutes and drums and a slow, trailing flute. Over the swell of the Earth Kingdom chants, laughter from a people enjoying the night after the toils of the day bubbles in the night.

Katara eats noodles, slurping them the way her Gran Gran taught her, each bite more delicious than the last. The Firelord's son, her dinner companion, watches on, berating her manners silently. So she steals a prawn-crab from his bowl and laughs at the shocked indignation in his wide eyes and frozen chopsticks.

Later, when they're walking towards the gate to the Upper Ring, nervous hands brush together.

Zuko and Katara each hold their breath as their fingers entwine.

* * *

 **The Meeting of Zuko & Katara II**

As they reach the threshold between the Upper and Middle Ring, the guards on the gate demand passes before they're allowed through. Only Katara has the gold and green ticket.

Because his pride is wounded, and he does not know what to say, Zuko blurts out the irony: a peasant from the South Pole returning to lodgings in Ba Sing Se's exclusive Upper Ring, while a prince shares rooms with his uncle amongst refugees and beggars in the Lower Ring. This is how he discovers she is not quite as lowly born as he thought.

'The chief's daughter?' he splutters. 'As in the leader of your people?'

She nods, pulling her hand from his to tuck a thick curl away behind her ear. He has never seen it out like this, all loose and unbound, free of its practical braid. 'Daughter-to-the-chief or son-to-the-chief are the titles of those in line for the chieftainship of the tribe.' She smirks. 'What your people call a prince or princess.'

Zuko looks at the girl, takes the opportunity to really study her. In the intelligence of her gaze, the smoothness of her skin, the humour lingering in the corner of her lips, he finds a lesson his uncle has spent years trying to teach him: some things are more than they appear.

* * *

 **The Meeting of Zuko & Katara III**

He hasn't given this much time or attention to anything other than his training and capturing the Avatar since his banishment, and now he finds himself frozen to the action he wants to take.

'Thank you for the yaki noodles,' she is telling him, hugging her arms around herself. 'Though you really didn't have to pay.'

'It's fine.'

She smiles at him, a pretty flush across her cheeks. 'Tomorrow night, I'm going to spend some time at the infirmary.'

 _I'll come. Whatever you want to do, I'll help_ , he thinks.

'You could, you could come with me. If you wanted to.'

His mind cannot focus on this conversation _and_ figure out how to kiss her. 'Sure.'

'There's a storage depot not far away that I'll need help raiding for medical supplies.' She glances at her feet only to peer up at him questioningly. 'Meet in the usual spot?'

He nods dumbly, a fuzzy haze of dusky cheeks and bright blue eyes have taken up every space in his body. To hell with it! If he takes her hand again and just kind of— _pulls_. But now she is stepping closer, her arms are around his neck, her face pressed against his collar bone and it takes his stupid arms a lifetime to tighten around her and return the hug. Agni, she smells like a field of spring wildflowers and sunlight dancing over glaciers and surely, _surely_ , she can feel his heart crashing against his chest.

She draws away first, an age later and yet too soon, her face upturned to look at him, _so close, just kiss her!_

'Goodnight, Zuko,' she says with a faint smile that freezes when she notices his gaze on her lips, how he's leaning slowly towards her. She backs away, breaks free from his hold, those blue eyes like the sky trying to decide between sunshine or rain. With a quick wave, she turns to the gate, flashes her pass, and is through. Lost to him.

Something cold and hard clenches tightly around his gut.


	20. Chapter 20

**It has to be said: I 300% love, cherish, and adore you people! You one-time reviewers, you hardcore crew who tell me your feels after every chapter. You. People. Rock. My. Socks. Yes, that's right. I'm appreciating you so hard I've slipped back into '90s accolades. Every fic author says it: reviews give me LIFE. And they do! You guys get to learn a little about me through reading my scribbles and I love that I get to learn a little about you through your reviews (to the one person who was snowed in and relied on updates to keep them entertained: hope you're free soon). Keep it up, ladies, gents, and everyone in between! Love from** **—** **Author.**

 **P.S. If constantly hitting that next button for these shorter chapters is annoying, do yourself a favour and google "Rumour Has It Fictionissocialinquiry archive of our own." AO3 allows you to read stories all on one screen rather than flicking chapters. Makes these short-length chaptered stories must more reader-friendly. Just a suggestion.**

* * *

 **Lake Laogai I**

From a cloudless sky comes rain in the form of parchment.

'The Avatar is here in Ba Sing Se,' he tells his uncle, dropping the crumpled flyer on the table— he can still feel the waterbender's finger between his. 'And he's lost his bison.' Without Katara and the secrecy of night time, the Avatar's presence is stark as day. He is here, in the city; the key to Zuko's destiny.

Uncle Iroh scrutinises the drawing. 'We have a chance for a new life here,' he says quietly, sorrow gentling his expression.

Scorn rises like bile in the prince's throat at the idea of making a life in an enemy nation. 'Have you ever thought that I want more from life than a nice apartment and a job serving tea?'

'There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity,' the old man advises in his quiet way; the regret in his eyes goes unnoticed by his nephew. 'I suggest you think about what it is that you want from your life and why.'

In his room, under boxes and clothes and blankets, a blue and white mask grins. 'I want my destiny.'

 _She never mentioned that the Avatar lost his bison_.

'What that means is up to you.'

He _told_ her _about his uncle, his sister. His father._

 _Why? Why didn't she tell him?_

* * *

 **Lake Laogai II**

Sokka squeals like a pig rat— the sound echoing sharply in the damp stone passages under Lake Laogai— when they round a corner and come face-to-mask with the Blue Spirit.

Katara makes a choking sound that thankfully goes unheard under her brother's theatrics.

'You're the Blue Spirit!' the Water Tribe warrior exclaims a little— a very little— quieter.

The Blue Spirit twirls his swords, his mask turning towards Katara.

Jet straightens from his defensive crouch. 'Wait, _who's_ this guy?'

'Sokka's girlfriend,' Toph mutters at the same time that Sokka says, 'The Blue Spirit, hero of the people!'

The Freedom Fighter looks the masked man over shrewdly. 'Never heard of him.'

Katara wants to stop Aang when he steps forward. 'Hi, Blue Spirit,' the boy chirps, all grins and friendly waves. 'I never got to thank you for freeing me from Zhao that time. So thank you!' His smile widens. 'What are you doing here?'

The Blue Spirit turns away from Katara to study the bald boy before him. Discomfit grips her at just how much taller and more dangerous the firebender appears next to Aang. He has both dao swords in a ready grip, a grip the waterbender has seen turn healthy men into bodies weeping tears of crimson.

'Aang.' Her voice seems to tremble in that dim, dank place. She walks to the airbender's side, eyeing the impassive mask shrewdly. 'Come on, we need to find Appa.' She tugs his monk's robe. 'I'm sure the Blue Spirit has things he has to be doing. Let's go.'

Appa's name brings a steely determination to Aang's face. 'Right. See you around, Blue Spirit!'

Their group continues down the rounded stone hallway. Only Katara looks back to the shadows the Firelord's son has left empty.

* * *

 **Lake Laogai III**

Iroh and Zuko stand in a sky bison's prison cell, all the evils of their nation between them.

'I know my own destiny, Uncle!'

The former general listens to the foolish confidence of youth and tries again— the hundredth time now or the thousandth— to get his nephew to see the malice of Ozai. 'Is it your own destiny, or is it a destiny someone else has tried to force on you?'

Zuko knows, some part of him must at least distinguish a difference. 'Stop it, Uncle! I have to do this!'

'I'm begging you, Prince Zuko! It's time for you to look inward and begin asking yourself the big questions. Who are you, and what do you want?' Questions Iroh was forced to ask himself at a time in his life when he was at his most vulnerable. He doesn't want Zuko to have to process his disillusionment with the Fire Nation while mourning someone he loves.

The boy shouts his frustration and throws down his swords and the demon mask that hides him from the consequences of the world.


	21. Chapter 21

**We're being interrupted by plot in this chapter (urg, I _know_ ) and I'm feeling benevolent so I'll post another one later tonight before bed. Loving your reactions, people. Golden as usual!**

* * *

 **The Death of the Blue Spirit**

Something isn't quite right.

Zuko's stomach is unsettled, as though he's eaten something stale or rotten. He thinks perhaps fresh air and daylight will help, just to get out of the dank hole that the Dai Li lurk within. But his unease is just as severe when he helps his uncle out into the open.

The old man's hand on his shoulder weighs heavily. 'You did the right thing, nephew.'

Zuko grips the blue and white demon mask between his hands.

'Leave it behind,' the old man advises gently.

Zuko allows the mask to slip through his fingers. It hits the lake with barely a splash; bubbles struggle to the surface as the grinning face fades into the dark depths.

* * *

 **Reunited**

Aang cries tears of joy, tears of relief, tears of… well, what could you call it, the depth of love the boy feels for the last relic of his people?

It brings tears to Katara's eyes, the thin figure embraced by the happily grunting bison.

'I missed you, buddy,' the airbender whispers into Appa's ivory coat. 'How did you get away?'

'The Blue Spirit!' Sokka exclaims, rubbing his face against Appa's furry shoulder. 'That must have been why he was sneaking around in the Dai Li's lair!'

A cold shiver runs the length of Katara's spine. 'You don't know that,' she hears herself saying.

'Why else would Mr Dark and Mysterious have been there?' Toph crows from Appa's other shoulder, a grin like sunrise lighting her face.

 _Why else_ was _he there?_ she wonders while her friends celebrate.

* * *

 **A Metamorphosis, My Nephew**

In his mind, in his uncle's new teashop, a blue dragon argues with a red dragon and the Fire Nation crumbles to dust. It burns away to ash. The flames scorch him.

 _It's hot._

'You should know that this is not a natural sickness.'

 _What's happening?_

'Your critical decision. What you did beneath that lake. It was in such conflict with your image of yourself that you are now at war within your own mind and body.'

 _What does that mean?_

'You are going through a metamorphosis, my nephew. It will not be a pleasant experience, but when you come out of it, you will be the beautiful prince you were always meant to be.'


	22. Chapter 22

**Welcome to the drama zone, sister to the danger zone that Kenny Logins was so adamant about. Much like the danger zone, the drama zone is a straight up highway… of angst. So strap yourselves in for the ride and I'M SORRY in advanced for the next few chapters. They're gonna take your feels and trample them. I'm going to post them quick-ish so the pain's short and fast, like a band aid. Because I care about you, dear reader... but also because: flow *hair flick*.**

* * *

 **Stood Up I**

Katara never before noticed how cold and uncomfortable the rooftops of Ba Sing Se can be. It's raining (though not on her thanks to a nifty bit of waterbending) and the Blue Spirit is nowhere to be found.

Was it the touch of her hand that has turned him away? That awkward moment, the blushing, almost-moment under the gate as they said goodnight? Or was it her coldness under Lake Laogai? The ambivalence. _I do not know this spirit. I do not know this waterbender_.

A dangerous cocktail of rejection, worry, and grief mix uneasily in her veins. _If he has better ways to spend his nights_ , _so be it_ , she thinks, but concern taints the sharpness of her hurt pride with clouds and mist; what if he's hurt? She never did see him leave the caverns under the lake, what if… No. Ridiculous. It is only the third night of his absence— _only?_ a nasty thought mocks her. She promises herself that it's the last one she'll spend on their broken, ugly rooftop.

Though she won't admit it, not even to herself, Katara never thought the roof was cold or ugly when the Firelord's son sat beside her pouring tea.

* * *

 **Stood Up II**

Days pass and Aang and Sokka leave to find a guru and a father, Toph to a tentative armistice with her mother. Katara swears she doesn't mind. It's a necessary separation— one she suggested, after all— and it isn't as though she's been left to idle away the days. General How and the Counsel of Five turn to her often for her experience of the Fire Nation and its Prince and Princess; what defences has she encountered in the past? What tactics have been employed against Aang, Sokka, Toph, and herself?

She has plenty to be getting on with.

So why does the sight of the familiar profile— _cheerful,_ she thinks in resentful longing, _he looks so happy_ — in the Upper Ring tea shop make her feel so abandoned and alone?

* * *

 **Overheard**

She wishes Sokka was here. Or Aang, or Toph. But then remembers that none of her friends know about her illicit twilight partnership with the Fire Prince vigilante. The thought makes her feel utterly and heartbreakingly alone.

'You're the only person I can talk to, Momo,' she tells the lemur on her shoulder as they return to the palace for the day. 'It's a shame you can't talk back.'

The lemur chitters sympathetically.

'What would you do in my position? Zuko is in the Upper Ring now, he's closer than ever and he hasn't even tried to come find me.'

Momo doesn't have any words of comfort for her, but a circus performer dressed like a Kyoshi Warrior grins from her hiding spot nearby.


	23. Chapter 23

**Now. The conscientious reader might notice that your author made you a promise: to post twice last night. The conscientious reader should be informed that said author proceeded to get into the wine with her husband, ended up rolling around laughing at stories from his day (he's a high school teacher, the drama is ENDLESS) and became entirely too inebriated to remember to post again. Whoops. So here, in the dusty light of morning, is your second chapter!**

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se I**

The Firelord's son kneels before her, illuminated in the sickly light of green crystals.

'Why did they throw you in here?' It doesn't matter why. 'Oh, wait, let me guess. It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!'

The Firelord's son glances at her and away.

Katara's hurt sits within her as solidly as ice. 'You're a terrible person! You know that?' _Not always_ , her mind whispers. 'Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace!' _Giving food to the hungry, shielding the poor from the cruel_. 'But what do you care?' _Why_ do _you care?_ 'You're the Firelord's son.' _Not the son I expected from such a man._ 'Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!'

Her anger teases words from his silence. 'You don't know what you're talking about!'

'I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally!' The familiar grief drops tears down her cheeks. 'The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.'

The Firelord's son's face is gentle as low burning embers. 'I'm sorry,' he tells her softly 'That's something we have in common.'

Between them, the ice shifts.

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se II**

'Where have you been these last few weeks?' Katara finds the courage to ask of the boy opposite her. The boy in question— the Firelord's son? The Blue Spirit? Zuko?— diligently studies the colour and texture of the stone floor. 'I waited for you. For three nights after our... dinner.' The memory of cold, empty rooftops stirs within her like the disturbed bottom of a river, swirling sand and leaf litter through turbulent waters. 'If you didn't want to… if the Blue Spirit didn't want to help the Painted Lady anymore, you could have told me.'

Zuko shifts his legs beneath him, crossing them. 'The Blue Spirit is dead.'

Discord swells in her throat. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, the Blue Spirit is gone. I threw away the mask. He's not part of who I am anymore.' He won't look her in the eye. 'I'm sorry I couldn't meet you in person to tell you. I've been sick.'

Katara doesn't reply. Katara doesn't believe him.

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se III**

'I'm sorry I yelled at you before.'

'It doesn't matter.'

'I was just so…' Those nights alone on the empty rooftop cut like knives. 'For so long now, you've been more than just an enemy, whichever face you wear.'

He raises his hand to the ruined skin over his left eye.

Katara manoeuvres herself to kneel before him. 'No, no, that's—that's not what I mean.'

But Zuko shakes his head, thinking of freed bison and the Avatar he's let walk this city without pursuit. 'It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realised I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.'

'Maybe you could be free of it.' The words fall from her lips before she can stop them.

He finally meets her gaze, startled. 'What?'

'I have healing abilities,' she reminds him.

'It's a scar, it can't be healed.'

The vial is weighty in hand. 'This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important.' She lowers the vial as her fingers trace the outline of his scar. 'I don't know if it would work, but…'

Zuko's expression is unreadable. She's had so little time to get to know the nuances of this face, the one behind the mask. Has it been enough time? Has it been enough for him to grow loyalty to a daughter-of-the-chief— his enemy— the way fragile trust has taken root in her?

Beside them, the cave wall explodes in a shower of dust and debris.

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se IV**

'Aang!'

The waterbender slips her hand into the firebender's and pulls him to his feet beside her. He is the towering storm. He is thunder. He is lightning. And her hand in his is all that keeps him rooted to the earth.

By the wall, the Avatar and his uncle peer at them through the gloom.

Together.

'Uncle,' he barks sharply, his grip on the girl tightening. 'What are you doing with the Avatar?'

'Saving you, that's what.' The airbender has spotted their entwined hands. He is glaring daggers at Zuko, but the older boy could care less.

Iroh, sage as always, gestures to the exit. 'We must go, nephew.'

Ahead, the cave glows bright, hopeful green.

Behind, Dai Li agents burst into the cave and encase Uncle Iroh in cold stone.


	24. Chapter 24

**You're Not the Man You Used to be**

 _Several nights ago, while Katara was waiting on rooftops and Zuko burned under the fires of a fever, the old man spoke to him of destiny._

 _'You're not the man you used to be, Zuko. You are stronger and wiser and freer than you have ever been.' Through the haze of fever, Iroh's voice came to him like a dream, less substantial than the hallucinations of his sickness._

 _More real were the Ba Sing Se roof tops, sipping tea with a crimson lady who had set down her water and her paint and made him see the stars were just as bright in the Earth Kingdom as they were back home._

I'm not the man I used to be _, he'd told her._

You were never the man you tried to be _, she had replied with eyes of moonlight._

 _It occurs to him that such a thing isn't, in fact, a criticism._

 _'You have come to the crossroads of your destiny,' the voice of his uncle told him in a tone of such tenderness, the young firebender had confessed his love of the old man to the waterbender right then and there. 'It's time for you to choose. It's time for you to choose good.'_

 _But the firebender was burning on a Ba Sing Se rooftop with a painted lady under a sky of brilliant stars, while his father laughed and set fire to the streets below..._

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se V**

There is poison in the Fire Princess and she does all she can to mix it into the veins of others. She sees her brother more clearly than he sees himself; she knows the greatness of his worth. Their uncle knows it too. Which is why the old man has to go.

'It's not too late for you, Zuko.' She has to try at least; the fool never thinks these things through. She's only doing what's best for her foolish, emotional brother. 'You can still redeem yourself.'

'The kind of redemption she offers is not for you.' Iroh hasn't truly looked _at_ her since before he went to war, Lu Ten died, and their mother disappeared with rumours of poisons and dead Firelords. But he looks at Zuko.

'Why don't you let him decide, _Uncle_?' She turns from the old man, pushing the old fantasies of his melting skin aside. For now. 'I need you, Zuko. I've plotted every move of this day, this glorious day in Fire Nation history, and the only way we win is together. At the end of this day, you will have your honour back. You will have Father's love. You will—'

'You're _sick!_ ' The Water Tribe peasant is red with rage. And she is holding Azula's brother's hand. His hand. 'You're really sick, you know! You lie and you manipulate and you scheme just to get what you want! Your father is as deluded as you are to think that his son has to _earn_ his love!' The peasant is held back only by Zuko's grip. 'You're _disgusting!_ '

The princess doesn't care to respond.

* * *

 **The Crystal Catacombs of Old Ba Sing Se VI**

The Avatar has plucked the waterbender from Zuko's side and the caves are cold as her home in the south. He is furious at the boy with arrows blue as the waterbender's eyes, despite it being his idea, Zuko's, for the two of them to run.

His sister is impatient to follow— see how her nails drum against her armour, how her smirk is already leaking towards her quarry. She watches him and studies him and waits for him to make the decision she thinks she's too clever to be surprised by.

He doesn't stop her when she pushes past him.

He doesn't stop her when her earthbenders drag Uncle along in his prison of crystal dirt.


	25. Chapter 25

**The Prince I**

His father once showed him the royal portrait room in the east wing of the palace. He was five and rain hammered the arrival of the wet season against the window panes. Servants were towelled like dogs in doorways when they came in from running errands.

Ozai told Zuko of their forefathers, of their greatness and their failings. How key balance was to true power.

 _'Zuko, I am begging you. Look into your heart and see what it is that you truly want,' says a voice not that of his father._

It was then Zuko realises that this memory is wrong. Ozai had been caught up in war councils and Azula's firebending training that day. Iroh had been the one to walk the young boy through the darkness and complexity of their shared past.

* * *

 **The Princess**

The Fire Princess holds the wheres and whys of your death, she just hasn't given you the gift of them yet.

Katara isn't blinking. Lightning takes only a second to strike; she doesn't have the luxury of blinking while Azula stands so close, her fingers still smoking with the ferocity of her attack. Blue fire. _Blue_.

Aang's shoulders are already heaving, but Katara is busy gathering water. The cave is lousy with water. It's enough to drown the princess a hundred times over.

Orange flames rise like demons between Aang and Azula. _Orange_.

* * *

 **The Prince II**

The prince watches his sister, he sees her scowl, sees the threat behind her eyes. His father's eyes.

The prince watches the Avatar, sees a boy who has had love and friendship and belonging, commodities the firebender hasn't traded in for years.

The prince watches the waterbender. He counts every second he spent by her side drinking tea and cleaning the streets of the city and finds himself a rich man.

He aims his fist.

He shoots his fire.


	26. Chapter 26

**Apologies in advanced for this chapter...**

 **Farewell to Ba Sing Se I**

 _Lightning rises, the Avatar falls._

So does Ba Sing Se. And the Earth Kingdom.

And Former General Iroh, son of Azulon and Illiah now passed, brother of Ozai, father of Lu Ten now passed, uncle of Zuko and Azula. Zuko says the words. Through tears and the whipping winds of the sky bison's flight, he says them. Through the waterbender sobbing over the lifeless Avatar he says them.

'We thank him for his sacrifice. May his soul burn with eternal flame.'

Beside him, the earthbender has her head between her knees, shoulders hunched and shaking.

Beside him, the Water Tribe boy steers the sky bison, his comic's heart in tatters back in that city of death.

Beside him, the waterbender gasps when she restarts the Avatar's heart.

Back in Ba Sing Se, his uncle lays broken and silent.

* * *

 **Farewell to Ba Sing Se II**

'Leave him alone, Sokka.'

'What's he doing here? What the hell happened back there?'

'Just… leave him be.'

'Katara… it's _Zuko_.'

Silence.

'As in, the jerk who chased us around the world Zuko.'

Silence.

'We can't just—'

'He saved our lives, mine and Aang's… he and his uncle did.'

'Where is his uncle, Sugar Queen?'

Silence.

'Katara—'

'Come on, Snoozles. Let's keep an eye on Aang while Appa rests.'

'But…'

'Come _on_.'

* * *

 **Destroyed I**

The boy is buckled with the bending of fate. He grips his hair in hands, lost to grief, and a ghost takes up residence beside him. The girl squats at his other side, a night-time world of navy and grey lit only by a crescent moon their audience. She is trembling. So is he.

'I'll kill her,' he whispers, to the world that has always tested him in the cruellest ways it can.

Katara's tears track miles down the exhaustion of her skin. She says nothing for what is there to say?

'She was looking right at me, _right at me_ , when she… she…'

He punches the earth and a stone splits his knuckles.

Blood the colour of his nation weeps out onto the grass.

* * *

 **Destroyed II**

Her softness has always been her strength. She meets his anger with liquid in her bones and he breaks upon her shores.

'I'm so sorry, Zuko,' she says it again and again while her hand grounds him, holds him. He doesn't see her, or his tears, but he's seen enough for one night, enough to last a lifetime.

'So am I.'


	27. Chapter 27

**Interlude VI**

The Avatar fell with Ba Sing Se, that's the word from the City of Walls and Secrets. The Fire Nation and its colonies proclaim it a victory. The date is dubbed Azula Day and a new festival is born.

None of the Fire Nation's enemies take any joy in this.

In the days following the city's fall, Hakoda of the Water Tribe meets the earthbender, his children, and the former Crown Prince of his enemy and a plan is made for the Day of Black Sun. Their time together is short, Appa is too visible on the deck of the captured warship and Sokka argues they need to take Aang deep into the Earth Kingdom and hide him. Zuko's shattered heart breaks again for the weeping waterbender as she bids farewell to her father and tribesmen. It is a bleak time spent on the run, waiting on the boy in the coma to either destroy their hopes or renew them. A hard crust of bitterness falls over them and the war becomes a story they define themselves by.

The friendships born under the stress of this darker world— this world absent of uncles and fathers and airbenders— begin as friendships of necessity. The Water Tribe boy, the waterbender, the earthbender. And the banished prince. They learn to trust him because they have to.

Along the way, they discover there is solace in one another during bedside vigils.

* * *

 **An Interlude on an Interlude**

They don't have the money for it, Katara knows that, but Toph can't see the masks and she's always been one to relish a good swindle.

'Can you distract the merchant?' she whispers to the girl at her side.

'You _know_ I can.'

'When he turns around, ready…. _Now._ '

'Excuse me, sir? I'm blind, but I'm looking for a silk purse for my mother. Her birthday is tomorrow and my aunt was supposed to help me find her a present but she hasn't been to visit. Can you help me?'

The man is putty in the earthbender's hands. 'Why of course, young miss. We've a green and cream one on sale over here.'

Toph steals the man's attention while Katara drops the blue and white mask into her bag.

* * *

 **Interlude VII**

The matron is working late. The Xing Fu Spirit Orphanage has taken in three new children this week alone, wanderers from Ba Sing Se fleeing the occupation, she supposes. She hasn't the heart to turn them away, but the boarding house is already packed to the rafters. But the youngest of them reminds her of her brother so strongly she can't turn him away.

The problem now is how to feed them. The orphanage is already getting by on rations and charity. If only she had _time_ to travel to the nearby city of Ma Ling and broker a deal with the Earth King's officers…

She almost misses them, the masked spirit and the lady of paint. They're sneaking out the kitchen window like wraiths, a crate of preserves on the battered kitchen table.


	28. Chapter 28

**Off Hiatus I**

'There's a tea shop in this village.' Katara wonders if he knows, if he saw it. 'On the market street, by the noodle bar.'

The Blue Spirit doesn't reply, the whetstone on the stolen knives is all the acknowledgement she gets.

'If you wait here, I could go get—'

'No.'

 _Shhhhhhhick_ , goes the stone.

'You haven't really eaten anything today. Don't you think—'

'We better get back,' says the arctic ice behind her companion's mask, 'before they wonder where we've gone.'

Katara's heart sinks. 'Sure.

* * *

 **Destroyed III**

Another night, another town. Sokka thinks she's counselling him, hearing him cry for the old man they barely knew but keenly felt the loss of. Sokka would almost approve of the form the "counselling" actually took. He was a fan of the masked vigilante after all.

But Zuko hadn't cried since _that_ night, desperately fleeing caverns and lightning.

Zuko has, however, taken to the new mask and the night time world it offers.

But he takes no joy in the food for the orphanage or the sabotage of the communications post. He is more mute than ever. Even his fingers in her grip are dead things, devoid of curiosity or thrill or wonder. He lets her hold his hand, but he may as well have severed it at the wrist for all her touch can do to make him feel.


	29. Chapter 29

**I'm so sorry for all the feels people. I tried to warn you about the drama zone... when I wrote these Iroh scenes I was a MESS. I hate Iroh dies stories, but unfortunately stories have a habit of telling me how they need to be told rather than the other way around.**

* * *

 **Off Hiatus II**

No tea, she decides, so its fire whiskey she finds for them a few nights later when she cannot possibly bear this winter from the boy of summer any longer. She leads him not to the province mayor's treasury as they'd planned, but far enough into the forest that even Toph won't find them.

He resists at first, sheds the mask to make sure she knows he's not happy about it, but she overrides him with a toast to the general.

'For his service to the Fire Nation and his family.' She thinks the waver in her voice stills the scowling boy almost as much as the words. But the first toast she drinks alone.

By the second, Zuko has dropped to his knees beside her and begins talking.

* * *

 **Iroh Remembered I**

'When I was a child, he wasn't around much. He and my cousin Lu Ten spent a lot of time at the front. But when he came home for war meetings with Grandfather he would take me for walks down to the docks and the fish markets. Mother and Father never wanted me to go, Father didn't want me among the commoners and Mother worried for my safety, but Uncle… he said the best way to learn about our people was from our people. He knew them all. The baker in Dockside, the seamstress two streets over, the owner of the best tavern in the city… He said a man should know the people whose lives he'll one day have care for. That was before Lu Ten died and my father took his throne.'

* * *

 **Iroh Remembered II**

'Was he with you the whole time?'

'Every day.'

'Your whole exile?'

'He went into exile with me, gave up his titles and lands to some lord loyal to my father.'

Katara cannot see the bottom of the boy's brokenness, but the crumbling of his edges is clear. She hands him the spicy liquor and squeezes his shoulder with her mother's ghost upon her own.

'He was a good man, a good uncle.'

Zuko's eyes are fuller than the moon, the tears leak like spring melt. 'A better man than me. A better man than my father.'

* * *

 **Iroh Remembered III**

The fire whisky makes her bold, makes easy the words that her heart stumbles over in daylight.

'I should have been quicker.' She lets her guilt fall open like palms held up in surrender. 'I was closest to him when Azula—when she… I should have been faster! I could have knocked him out of the way or blocked her strike. There was a whole canal there! I could have… could've…'

The firebender doesn't tell her to quiet but his forehead against hers begs for release. 'It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault but hers.'

She grips the hair at the back of his neck and the softness he shares, grips them like a lifeline. 'We'll bring her to justice,' she swears in a sudden fit of fervour. 'She _won't_ get away with this!'

Zuko sighs and wipes his eyes. 'It's Azula,' he offers in explanation, 'of course she will. She was born lucky.'


	30. Chapter 30

***offers reader something shiny* Some good news? Yes? You would like?**

 **I've been writing my lil butt off to get this finished before my posting catches up to where I'm at and it looks like there's going to be more than the predicted forty chapters. Yay! Yay, right?**

 **Shit's getting heavy, over here, though. The ending I _thought_ was going to happen is turning out verrrrrrrrrrrrry different 0.0**

* * *

 **A Few too Many I**

She stows her vigilante robes and the mask in her satchel, leaves red face paint on the leaves of an obliging maidenhair tree. The fire whiskey warms her belly, but there's still half the bottle sloshing around in Zuko's palm. He sips from it once as Katara leads him back to the campsite. Perhaps it's the alcohol, or the warming spring nights, but his grip in hers doesn't feel quite so limp anymore.

'Music night.'

'Music night?'

Zuko nods once before his cheeks lighten with a smile. 'We should have music night. It was Uncle's favourite.'

She mirrors his grin, tentatively hopeful. 'When Aang wakes up,' she promises, squeezing his hand tightly. 'He'll know all the best songs.'

* * *

 **A Few too Many II**

'Where have you two been?' Sokka looms up out of the darkness, arms crossed imperiously.

'Walking,' Katara says the same time Zuko raises the bottle and shouts, 'drinking!'

'Al _right_!' Toph cheers from Appa's side. 'We should send you out with Zuko more often, Sugar Queen!'

' _Drinking?!_ Katara!'

'Oh, lighten up, Sokka. It was only a couple of dinks—drinks.'

'More than a couple,' Zuko mutters, pushing the bottle into the Water Tribe boy's chest. 'Here. Drink up.'

'Pass it my way when you're done, Snoozles!'

Sokka glowers at all three of them. 'I want no part in this,' he announces, marching back to the fireside.

* * *

 **A Few too Many More**

'Do you guys ever think about how weird Appa is?' Sokka demands loudly, forty minutes later, as he nurses the bottle of fire whiskey.

Katara hasn't recovered from Toph's comment about damp earth yet, she's crying tears of laughter with the earthbender and doesn't see them stopping anytime soon.

'Cause I do,' Sokka goes on. 'Like, often.'

Zuko squints at the sleeping bison, tilting his head to the left. 'Yeah,' he says slowly. 'Yeah, I kinda see what you mean.'

Sokka spreads his arms out wide. 'It's weird, right? He's huge and fuzzy and obviously super smart, but he flies us 'round places, you know?'

Katara and Toph lose themselves in another round of giggles, their cackle setting Zuko off, too.

Sokka tries to stamp his foot while sitting down. 'You _guys!_ '

Zuko falls into the waterbender's side with the force of his laughter and slings and arm around her shoulders to stop himself landing in her lap. Her laugh sounds like the Fire Sage's Sunday bells and she's perfumed more sweetly than their finest incense. When Sokka joins their mirth, Katara drops her head onto Zuko's shoulder to wipe the tears from her eyes.

* * *

 **Consequences I**

Katara wakes because her pillow is trying to slide out from under her heavy, heavy head. It's barely daylight, her eyes don't want to open, so she clings to him and tells him to lay still.

'I need to get up,' he mutters into her hair, tapping her gently awake.

'Mmph.'

'Katara,' he whispers, his voice even raspier than usual.

'Only 'f you come back,' she grumbles, unhappy with the whole situation.

'I will,' he promises quietly. 'I'll bring your actual pillow back with me.'

'Mmkay.'

He wiggles free, detangles himself from her grip in his shirt and she immediately drops back to sleep.

* * *

 **Consequences II**

Sometime later: 'Katara, stop breathing so loudly,' Sokka begs from the cocoon of his sleeping bag.

'Your talking is louder!' she snaps from the shade of the ginko tree.

'You're a bad influence,' her brother accuses the approaching firebender. 'Is this some kind of Fire Nation sneak attack? You kill our heads with whiskey?'

The attacker-in-question rolls his eyes and hands Toph and Katara their water canteens. 'Yeah, after eight weeks, I strike with a bottle _your_ sister surprised me with.'

'Hey,' she says with a frown. 'That was a secret!'

'Yeah, a secret you two stumbled drunkenly into camp with last night,' Toph muttered as Sokka hurls himself upright, stumbling a few feet away— still encased in the sleeping bag— to vomit loudly.

'Sokka! Gross!' Katara calls, turning away from the moaning Water Tribe boy.

'Better he gets it up sooner rather than later,' Zuko says grimly, turning back to the smouldering fire. 'I'll make breakfast.'

* * *

 **You guys are going to like the Monday midday (AEST) update *teases*.**


	31. Chapter 31

**The Awakening**

Two days later, the Avatar wakes during a storm.

They've taken shelter in an abandoned hut a mile out of the nearest village. The weather howls and the shack's weather-board walls do little to contain the sharp glow of pure white light before Aang wakes with a start. Above him cluster a group of familiar faces: blue eyes, and milky eyes, and golden eyes embedded in a scarred face…

The Avatar shouts in terror and shoots a blast of wind at Zuko that clatters the firebender against the far wall like a handful of matchsticks.

'Aang, no!' Katara knocks the boy's attack away, pressing him back down into his bed. 'It's okay, we've got you.'

The dark stubble of the airbender's new hair makes his milky complexion look even paler. 'Wh—What…'

He passes out. Not much of an awakening, really.

* * *

 **An Adjustment Period I**

The airbender hasn't taken his eyes off the firebender. On the opposite side of the campfire, Aang reclines, ashen-faced, against Appa's leg and listens to a story of lightning and death.

'Once Zuko joined us, Azula got… really angry. When you went into the Avatar State, she took her chance and shot you down.' Katara let her gaze drop to her lap, tracing the lines of her hands; forest grass underneath her, not cavern floor. Moonlight above her, not green crystal glow. 'Iroh—General Iroh got free somehow, it's only because of him that we escaped. Zuko was doing his best to keep them back but there were just so many. When Iroh shouted for us to leave, that's when Azula got him.'

Behind her, Zuko stood. Zuko walked away from the fireside. Zuko spent a moment hating the Avatar for being alive while his uncle is not.

* * *

 **An Adjustment Period II**

A few days after waking, Aang is up and moving again. He practices gentle waterbending moves in a nearby creek, and airbender stretches that begin to bring his thin arms back into strength.

'Hey, Katara, check this out!' he calls, spinning a small vortex of air with one hand and a ring of water with the other.

From her seat by Toph and Zuko, the waterbender smiles. 'Looks like you're feeling better,' she says warmly, thanking Tui and La for the hundredth time for the young boy's recovery.

'Pretty neat, huh? Want me to show you how?'

'Maybe later, Aang, I'll have to get dinner started soon.'

She begins rummaging in her cooking bag while beside her, Zuko produces a wok from his own. 'I'll help,' he says by way of explanation, as he has every evening for the past three weeks.

Katara's smile is brighter than the sunset. 'Thanks.'

Aang drops the water and wind from his palms in a heartbeat. 'I'll help!'

'It's okay, Aang,' she calls over her shoulder. 'We've got it. Keep practicing your bending!'

The young monk watches with narrowed eyes as the firebender follows closely on Katara's heels.


	32. Chapter 32

**An Adjustment Period III**

'It's kinda… odd, isn't it?'

Sokka— preoccupied with the manly duty of boomerang sharpening— grunts.

'Zuko, I mean… and Katara.'

Sokka shrugs. 'His cooking's not that bad.'

'No!' Aang wrings his hands together, glancing up towards the fire at the pair bickering over a wok. 'Not that. The… you know… walks. Alone. At night.'

The whet stone makes a satisfying rasp against the boomerang's edge. 'Man! Zuko's whet stone is _way_ better than mine!'

Aang crowds closer to his friend. 'Sokka. You're not listening.'

'Huh?' He blinks at the younger boy. 'Sorry, what were you saying?'

The monk's face is mottled red and white. 'Zuko and Katara's… friendship. Doesn't it seem… funny, to you?'

Sokka blinks. He peers past the Avatar to the darkening scowl on his sister's face and the steam hissing from the prince's fists. 'No more than usual,' he replies. 'Katara's always like that.'

Far from assured, Aang returns to worrying— suspecting— in silence.

* * *

 **Rumour Has It V**

On their way to the Fire Nation, whilst buying supplies from a fishing village, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko hear that the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady were spotted routing a squad of patrolling firebenders.

'Where?' Sokka asks eagerly, clustering closer to the two old men at the market stall beside him. 'When?!'

The man with one eye puffs on his pipe. 'Last night,' he grumbles. 'To the east. When they recovered, those that weren't killed that is, they slaughtered the nearest village.'

Sokka spins to face his sister, elated despite the news of bloodshed. 'That isn't far from our camp!'

'Shh, Sokka!' She glances meaningfully and the bright-eyed men over the Water Tribe boy's shoulder.

But her brother is practically levitating feet off the ground. 'Blue Spirit _sneak attack!_ '

Head shaking at the Water Tribe boy's antics, Zuko prods him away from the bemused vendor. 'The villagers,' he says to the one-eyed man. 'Did any survive?'

'Who can say?' One-Eye's friend pipes up, scratching his underarm. 'A travelling merchant found them. The Fire Nation soldiers round here aren't too fond of us Earth Kingdomers. I wager they didn't leave a single child breathing.'

Despite Sokka's excitement about his favourite vigilante's proximity, the firebender and his accomplice feel stones drop into their bellies and settle beside their breakfast.

* * *

 **An Adjustment Period IV**

'Aang?'

The waterbender's voice turns the monk's head, quick as a sparrow-quail. 'Katara!'

She smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling. 'Do you have a moment? I want to talk to you about something.'

He makes space for her beside Appa. 'Sure! What's on your mind?'

'Well, I've been thinking, and I've spoken to Zuko about it, too…' That took some of the breath out of his grin. 'He's agreed. To teach you, I mean.'

Aang blinks. 'Teach me?'

'Firebending,' Katara supplies, kneeling beside him. 'I know you had your heart set on Sifu Iroh, but Zuko's the next best thing. Honestly, I think it would be good for you both.'

'You do?' he hedges, wishing he could blow out of the clearing in a whirl of wind.

'Of course! I know the eclipse will weaken firebending, but it's still part of the plan: learning all four elements.'

Aang studies her wide, hopeful eyes, feels her faith in him, and can't find it in himself to ruin the moment with the dark cloud that's been blooming in his thoughts every night that she disappears with the Firelord's son. 'Sure, Katara. That's a great idea.'


	33. Chapter 33

**A Frank Discussion**

Zuko finds an old teapot at the markets and the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady take up their old ritual of tea after a night of knives and water whips. There is comfort in the familiarity even if they no longer sip tea on Ba Sing Se rooftops. Zuko often takes the opportunity to confide in his companion some teaching of his uncle's— all of which centre on an anecdote about tea.

Tonight, however, he breaks pattern.

'Aang's been asking question about what we do together at night,' he says as he waits for the ginseng between his hands to cool.

Katara circles the rim of her cup with her thumb. 'Yeah, Toph keeps cracking jokes about it when it's the girls' turn to bathe in the river.'

A smile pulls at Zuko's lips. 'Your brother tried to threaten me the other day but got distracted halfway through by a knife fighting trick he wanted me to teach him.'

Katara laughs at the absurdity; that's Sokka alright.

'It's different with Aang though,' the firebender continues, his voice serious once more. 'He's… jealous.'

'Oh?' she asks in a stranger's tone of voice. 'Of what?'

Zuko eyes her disbelievingly. 'You tell me.'

'I don't know, Zuko. He's probably just adjusting to having you with us. Besides, they don't know about the Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit, maybe we should tell them.'

'Is that all we're doing?' he asks quietly, his gaze unwavering.

Katara's swallows through a lump in her throat, looking down into her lap. 'No. No, I don't think it is.'

He studies her in a still moment, studies her like she's the ocean and he's the sky. Zuko turns her chin and kisses her softly, a brush of lips that lingers just long enough to make the waterbender sigh. 'If we're really going to do this, meet up with your father's warriors and invade my homeland… In case something goes wrong, I don't want to have any more regrets.'

His uncle sits heavily between them, charred and burned through by lightning.

Katara nods, her cheeks red even in the dim moonlight. 'Okay,' she says simply, her gaze flicking between his lips and his eyes. 'Okay.'


	34. Chapter 34

**It could be the PMS talking but all your lovely reviews are giving me FEELINGS people, in the form of giggles and teariness. Stop it! (Never stop it!) Here, have this entirely PWP series of scenes feat. music night.**

* * *

 **Music Night I**

On their first night in the Fire Nation— a combination of water and airbending allowing them to sneak past the blockade as a wisp of cloud— Katara remembers her promise of music night. While Aang struggles under Zuko's less-than-patient tutorage, Toph, Sokka, and Katara find the group food, Fire Nation clothes, and an old biwa missing a string.

' _Clothes, Katara_ ,' Sokka hisses as she stops by the broken instrument.

They're scavenging, not their proudest moment. The laundry house is issuing steam while in the field out back, dozens of clotheslines sway and bow in the breeze. On the other side of the clothes lines, the owner of the laundry snores loudly; surely, he wouldn't miss the scuffed and broken lute…

Ignoring her brother's whisper-yells of disapproval, she buddles the biwa into her load and runs for the tree over the hill where Toph waits with the rest of their supplies.

* * *

 **Music Night II**

Much like the fire whiskey, Sokka's protests only last until he's asked to play the one song he knows. Any opportunity to show off. The song is barely in time with his enthusiastic singing, and the biwa falls out of tune half way through, but it doesn't stop Aang dancing, or Sokka ending the song by sliding two metres on his knees, arms thrown into the air.

'It's times like these I'm glad I'm blind,' Toph chortles from the back of the cave they're squatting in. 'My feet did not need to see that level of stupid.'

'You're not wrong,' Zuko mutters to her.

Katara glowers at them both. 'Music night was _your_ idea.'

'I know.' A less severe look eases his pained expression. 'The embarrassing musical displays are part of it.'

Sokka has taken delight in Zuko's hatred of his many new nicknames. 'I'd like to see you do better, Hotman!'

* * *

 **Music Night III**

Aang steals the next song, Sokka, Katara, and Toph making a circle of wild stomping and whooping to the tune of the airbender's singing. It rises, this song of Air Nomads, it sails upwards with the smoke of their campfire, it hangs amongst the clouds.

Back on the earth, the waterbender laughs at her brother's exuberance and falls to the ground beside the firebender. 'I think I love Air Nomad songs,' she declares, crossing her legs and leaning into his side.

Zuko grunts but his scowl has eased and there's a lightness to him that's been scarce since Ba Sing Se. 'He's a good musician.'

The waterbender hears the words he doesn't say: _Uncle would love this. Uncle would approve_.

'A good music night?' she asks, linking their fingers together under the cover of her knee.

His eyes are vivid gold in the firelight when he agrees.

* * *

 **I'm introducing a new sub-section of my author's notes called 'Rumour Has It Trivia.' This is a purely self-indulgent _behind the scenes_ type thing. Take it or leave it as you like :)**

 **RHI trivia #1: Yes, you better believe Sokka ended his song with the quintessential lead guitarist powerslide.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Rumour Has It VI**

'General Shinu, my patience wears thin.

'Y—Yes, my lord, my apologies. The vigilante's—'

'Criminals. They're criminals, call them what they are.'

'Yes, sir, ah the criminals are proving to be wily, more adept than our sources originally reported. Just last week they routed the Rough Rhinos _again_. The Rough Rhino's are a notorious mercenary group—'

'I know who they are! What are you doing about it?!'

General Shinu treads very carefully now. The Firelord has a tendency to incinerate people who push him to shouting. 'Everything we can, my lord. The bounty on both the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady has been doubled, the Fire Sages are researching precedents of spirits acting as they are, while the Royal Librarians are researching similar past vigilan— criminal activity. Our spies in the Earth Kingdom are on high alert for anything or anyone who knows anything about their identities.'

Ozai stirs from his mire behind the wall of living fire. 'Mark my words, General. When you capture these peasant filths and drag them to my Hall, I will peel their flesh from their bones and burn them where they stand.'

A chill travels the old general's spine. 'As you command, my lord.'

* * *

 **RHI trivia #2: Writing unstable-tyrant-induced tension is so much fun I'm taking a quick sociopath test online _just to be sure_. This week on: Your Author Going Mad…**


	36. Chapter 36

**So here's the thing… we're catching up to the great chasm of unwritten territory quicker than my update-happy arse realised. Yikes. I had assurances from both my Brain and my Better Judgement that it would be a matter of a mere 5000ish words until the finish line.**

 **Turns out both those hoes were lying because I'm midway through THE most unexpected side quest (for reals, no one asked for this) and the end still seems like its miles away. At this stage, I am as in the dark about the ending as you (well… I have _ideas_ but this train is practically driving itself at this stage so who knows). I'm gonna see this thing through til the end though so feel free to strap your emotions to the train tracks by mine!**

* * *

 **Master Piando I**

Zuko warns them against it.

Zuko tries to make them understand deeply Fire Nation ideas around honour and loyalty and a master swordsman's duty to his Firelord, but his new friends smile with a confidence he doesn't think he'll ever feel and respond with notions of belonging, of fairness: they've each of them trained with a master and believe Sokka deserves that same privilege.

'It's dangerous,' he attempts once more when he's alone with the waterbender. They're surrounded by lush jungle forest, and her hand in his is a tempting distraction he's slowly failing to resist. 'None of you understand what it's like here. I know Master Piando, he's an honourable man, which is _exactly_ why he can't find out who your brother is. Or who's travelling with him!'

She tugs his stiff body forward— _hurry up_ , it seems to say— and the skirts of her Painted Lady outfit whisper over the damp ground. 'Sokka will be fine, Zuko. He's smarter than you give him credit for.'

The former-prince wants to argue. He wants to take her in his arms and whisper the true root of his fears: that he's come to respect the Water Tribe boy more than he'd care to admit, that he's frightened for him because he can't trust his own people anymore, that he would do anything to save her mourning the loss of another family member at the hands of his nation.

He doesn't though.

He just grips her fingers tighter.

* * *

 **Master Piando II**

Katara misses the firebender as soon as she, Sokka, and Toph set out to meet the master swordsman. Here in the Fire Nation, Zuko's face is too recognisable, besides Aang has new firebending forms to learn, the eclipse is mere weeks away.

Ahead, Sokka is dancing impatiently from one foot to the other. 'Ka _tara_! Come on!' he whines, shaking his hands as though they're being attacked by spider-mites.

At her side, Toph yawns deliberately. 'Can it, Snoozles. We'll get there when we get there.'

The boy huffs, glowering at the earthbender, but marches determinedly down the road. In the split second he turns away, he looks so like their father that it takes Katara's breath away.

* * *

 **Idle Days I**

The first few hours they spend together while Sokka is learning the art of the sword, are diligent, purposeful things. Aang trains with Zuko mid-morning, Toph late-morning, and Katara midday. By then, the boy is sorely in need of rest and the group follow his example and lay under the shade of a bamboo grove.

Aang is asleep in minutes.

'You two were too hard on him,' Katara reproves, eyeing the lightly snoring monk across the grove in concern. 'He's still recovering.'

Zuko, stretched out on her right, frowns at her. 'He's going to face my father in a few weeks. He _has_ to be ready.'

'He's right,' Toph pipes up from her left. ' _You_ were too easy on him, princess. With all your _just do what feels right, Aang_ and _move gently with the flow of the water, Aang_. Urg, I wish all bending was like earthbending.'

'And I wish I could cram a little waterbender wisdom into your thick head! He was in a coma for two months!'

'He can take it,' Toph fires back, leaning up on one elbow to glower in Katara's general direction. 'He doesn't need you _mothering_ him all the time!'

Katara shoots upright, indignation— hot like lightning— in her throat. ' _Mothering?!_ '

* * *

 **Idle Days II**

The whisper-yelling has stopped, but the stony silence between the two girls is about as comfortable as a cactus bush.

Zuko nudges Katara imploringly.

'What?' she snaps.

'Don't yell at me! You should apologise to Toph.' The waterbender's outrage is matched only by the earthbender's smugness. 'And she should apologise to you. You should apologise to each other; you're both training Aang your own way. There's no honour in criticising each other.'

The two girls sulk.

The two girls sniff.

Toph reaches around Katara to punch Zuko in the arm. 'Ow!'

'Shut up.' She turns back to Katara. 'I'm sorry for what I said. Your bending's different to mine and I should have respected that.'

A faint smile the earthbender will never see lightens Katara's face. 'Me too, Toph. You're a great teacher, Aang's lucky to have you.'

Peace returns to the gently swaying bamboo grove.

* * *

 **Idle Days III**

As the muggy day wears into afternoon, Katara dozes. She closes her eyes for what feels like mere minutes and wakes up curled into Zuko's side. The firebender's breathing is deep and steady and he's drawing circles over her shoulder.

Movement at Katara's back wakes her halfway back to alertness. 'Where are you going?' a husky voice asks, resonating against her cheek.

'Elsewhere,' Toph replies flatly. 'Somewhere I'm not the third wheel.'

The husky voice doesn't respond, but when the loud footsteps disappear, a kiss is pressed to her forehead. It's soft, like hesitant rainfall in the off season and, like the rain, the earth of her body welcomes it with joy. She stretches, flexes upwards like a seedling searching for sunlight, and a second kiss brushes her cheek.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #3: Your author wrote the final drabble in this chapter last year while her husband was away, and she and the dog were laying around eating chocolate and pig's ears (respectively) whilst missing him. Lonely fluff writing is real and deliciously indulgent.**


	37. Chapter 37

**Vigilante Ways I**

After dinner, when a chipper but tried Sokka returns to descend on what's left of the fried mushrooms and rice, Katara and Zuko make their usual excuses and depart for the winding road back to Shu Jing. Sokka is too busy regaling the others with his unique approach to swordsmanship to give them much notice— Toph likewise is occupied with drawing jokes out of his exaltations— but Aang watches them suspiciously as they leave.

Their crimson paint and spirit's mask are still hidden in Katara's satchel when the young monk confronts them on the road. His hands hold to his hips in suspicion, the light-heartedness in his expression replaced by severity.

The Avatar has questions.

* * *

 **Vigilante Ways II**

'Where are you going?'

'For a walk, like we do every night.'

'But what do you do? Why doesn't anyone else come?'

'We have… things to talk about, Aang.'

'What things? _What things_ , Katara?'

The firebender has had enough. 'What's your problem?'

'My problem, _Zuko_ , is I get shot down by _your_ sister, fall into a coma for two months, and when I wake up _you're_ with us… _cooking_ and—and _walking_ with my—with my friend and it feels like something's going on!' The tip of the airbender's arrow that protrudes from his growing hairline flickers once, faintly, like a wisp of cloud as it passes across the moon.

'Aang.' Katara goes to him, tries to rest her hands on his shoulders but he shrugs them off.

'Are you… are you _with_ him?' he demands, glaring around her at the scowling firebender.

The pink stains in Katara's cheeks are hidden under the cover of night. 'Why don't you go back to the others, Aang? I don't want to talk about this right now, we'll talk later, I promise.'

'Why won't you answer me? Are you, or aren't you?'

Katara's softness begins to toughen. 'I said I didn't want to talk about it right now.'

Hurt swirls in the Avatar's eyes. 'I thought... after the lover's cave… that you, that we…'

Guilt that shouldn't be hers, swirls low in Katara's stomach. 'Aang… it's not like that.'

But the airbender has tears in his eyes. He casts her one hurt look before shooting upwards in a flurry of wind and skipping away on the boughs of trees.

* * *

 **Vigilante Ways III**

The Blue Spirit never talks but tonight his silence is louder than usual.

They come out of the bamboo forest in the hills, following the winding path down to the town. They've no lost or vulnerable souls to help tonight, no one Katara could scout out earlier in the day when she, Toph, and Sokka had been in the well-to-do village.

No, tonight they plan to restore the Blue Spirit to his trademark dao swords.

At the weapons store, the Painted Lady keeps watch while the Blue Spirit searches out the weapons. He wants to steal them, but the waterbender insists he leave his daggers and a few coins in payment so he does. Despite the blood boiling in his veins to a medley of _are you with him?_ and _Aang… it's not like that_ he respects her wishes.

What he wants is to set the whole damn town on fire.

* * *

 **Vigilante Ways IV**

They spend some time slinking like shadows through the streets, but under the stewardship of Master Piando the town of Shu Jing has settled into an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. There doesn't seem to be any crime to speak of.

When the Painted Lady gives up on the night's wanderings and suggests a rooftop tea, the Blue Spirit shakes his head sharply and nods towards the forest.

'You want to go back? Already?' she asks. 'But it's so early.'

He doesn't answer, despite the absence of an audience, and it's in this frosty silence that he leads the way to the edge of town. Once the houses are at their backs, the fire-lit windows dwindling behind them, Katara can't help herself.; she never could see a wound without finding a way to bleed and mend it.

'Zuko. Talk to me.'

* * *

 ** _Guys!_** **The Drama™! Can you believe?! We're going through tropes like nobody's business: secretly dating, dramatic confrontations, love triangles, unrequited love. Christ, someone put a stop to it.**

 **RHI trivia #4: I actually love Aang a lot. I don't even mind the canon pairing of he and Katara (I just feel it's a little unlikely, speaking as a former-teenaged girl – as if all of us didn't go through the "bad boy" phase). Aang is beautiful and pure and has waaaaay too much relying on him to have a romantic sub-plot rn.**


	38. Chapter 38

**I see we all have feelings about Aang, Aang's attachment to Katara, and her ambivalence in the previous chapter. I feel you, people, I do. Allow me to spin you some meta for a moment? (Also feel free to skip this and get straight to the juiciness that is this update).**

 **Aang's canon sense of entitlement to Katara and her feelings is gross, I think we can all agree on that, yes? He has his reasons sure, I totally get those and feel for him: wanting to cling to a parent-figure in the wake of discovering his people's genocide. Very understandable. I honestly love the little guy. But his attachment to Katara is fraught with problematic behaviour. He is, however, twelve years old. I know adults in their thirties who can't self-regulate well enough to not make their problems everyone else's problems so it's unlikely a twelve-year-old can. Let's give Aang the benefit of the doubt: being an occasional douche is kinda part and parcel of the growing up process. NOTE: this does not _excuse_ his behaviour, it merely _explains_ it. No apologists here, scout's honour.**

 **On with the show! You guys are going to like this one, I bet!**

* * *

 **Zuko Unravelling I**

 _Are you with him? It's not like that._

'Zuko?'

 _Are you with him?_

'Hey. Zuko?' Soft hands. Soft like kisses in the grass. Soft like the delicate thing in his chest, crushed by the Avatar's words. By the waterbender's reply. 'What's wrong?'

 _Aang, It's not like that_.

Her eyes are his undoing, soft as her touch and hurt at his silence. But his element is seething in his veins, so he lashes out with words like wildfire, words fit to scorch much harder things from this earth.

'What happened with you and him?' The words are choked full of venom, spilling and spitting from him. 'What the hell is the _lover's cave?_ '

Her shock only fuels the tempest. He doesn't wait for a response but speeds further on, further up the path and into the bamboo forest. 'What—?'

'Why didn't you tell him?' he demands, turning on her as his flight becomes fight. 'Why wouldn't you?'

She's still a lady of crimson swirls, her shoulders exposed under the netting of her veil. _Like a bride's_ , the incongruent thought interrupts jealousy's hold on him. It mollifies him long enough for her touch to gentle him, still him, draw him down from the towering height of hating the Avatar's very name to stand beside her in the bamboo forest.

'He asked you if we were together. And you said nothing.'

* * *

 **Zuko Unravelling II**

She is water and so her words pool in the hurt places inside of him, soothing. 'It's not… Aang has this… crush on me. There was a time…' She winces like Azula the first and last time she tried oysters. 'I was confused. I used to think maybe I might like him but it's hard when there's so much he needs to learn, and he leans on me. Toph's right, I do mother him and it just...' She gestures helplessly, palms upwards, beseeching. 'It never really took, my feelings for him. They were always closer to how I feel for Sokka. Nothing like—'

Her eyes dart towards him and away as colour rises like flames in her cheeks. 'Can you take the mask off?' she demands, fists clenching in her skirt. 'I can't see your face.'

As he slips the Blue Spirit's mask from his face, she hugs her arms around her middle. 'I didn't tell Aang anything about… about you and me because I don't—I don't really know what this is. I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to presume…'

His mind is white with shock.

She didn't want to presume?

She doesn't know what this is?

'I like you,' he blurts, the white noise of shock obviously shorting the filter between his thoughts and his mouth.

She looks pretty with dusky cheeks. She looks pretty all the time, but Zuko secretly thrills at the colour of his nation in her cheeks. 'Me too,' she squeaks, clearing her throat and smiling shyly. At him.

'Good.' He doesn't know where to look, where is safe. It's like being under the arch of the gate to the Upper Ring in Ba Sing Se all over again; the urge to kiss her must be stamped across his forehead but he doesn't know how to make it happen…

* * *

 **Kisses in the Dark I**

As it turns out, the feeling is mutual.

Katara's lips find his and now his back is pressed against a pine tree on the edge of the forest and the waterbender's body is touching every part of his own and he _cannot think_.

Katara, for her part, is floating. Her thoughts are distant, silent things and her blood is singing in her ears to the tune of the firebender's breath hot on her tongue. He is warm, so warm, and tall enough for her to stand on toe tip to kiss.

Later, when she pulls away, drunk on the headiness of his kisses, she'll laugh at the stains of red paint on his face. She'll giggle and rub her nose over his to smear him again. To mark him.

But now, right now, there's a feast at Zuko's lips and she wants to taste each and every dish.

* * *

 **Chapter break here because I am _quickly_ catching up to myself and by Friday won't have anything edited to post! If work is slow today, I'm going to try and get some chapters written! Kisses are to be continued in the next chapter…**


	39. Chapter 39

**If your goal was to make my hormonal arse giggle with joy at your reviews/comments and then get teary with how much I love you guys then – bravo. You did it! *wipes away tears and the declaration of love bubbling up*** **I really enjoy having this dialogue with you guys. When this story's over I am going to be so bummed.**

 **Anyway! You may have noticed our updates have dropped to 2/day, unfortunately I got way too update happy and I'm building a house simultaneously which is obscenely time consuming, y'all. This is my inelegant way of telling you I wasn't able to write a speedily as I thought, but I'll keep on keeping on :) Updates speeds may vary from here on out.**

* * *

 **Kisses in the Dark II**

Just as Katara's breath dwindles— just as she has to find another or else fall to the ground in a dead faint— Zuko breaks the kiss long enough to make a sound low in his throat that sends sparks past her pelvis. He snatches her up and spreads her down over the soft grass like a spilled drink. Her knees part and she pulls him closer— _not close enough_ — locking her ankles behind his back.

Do all firebenders burn like this when they kiss? This was nothing like the few other kisses they'd shared, like nothing her Gran Gran ever told her. Zuko bows over her, dragging his lips softly— almost teasingly, _not enough_ — back and forth over her own. His fingers play in her hair, tickle on her neck, and his weight on her torso, her hips, is darkly delicious.

He takes her bottom lips between his teeth without warning, hard enough that she makes a sound— low and breathless. He sighs her name as he lets go, pressing into her so that she feels flushed with fever.

'Again,' she breathes, straining upwards from beneath him. 'Do that again.'

* * *

 **Kisses in the Dark III**

It feels like the fire whisky. Limbs heavy, brain numb, lips buzzing. Only infinitely _more_.

Katara draws him back with a hand at the base of his skull when he presses into a part of her that feels like vines of sunlight sprawling in her flesh, heavy with bursting, juicy fruits. She traces his lips with her tongue, savouring the flavour of his breath, emboldened by the fire he is bending in her blood.

His hand is tracing down the slope of her neck, the plain of her chest. When his thumb brushes the raised arc of a nipple beneath her breast band, she makes a noise like a wounded cat-beaver— low and breathy.

Embarrassment floods in like the tide. 'Sorry, I—'

'Don't.' He hoists himself up onto his elbows, thumb skirting along the curve of her ribs now. 'Don't apologise. I liked it.'

Her hands drop from his hair even as her heart speeds. 'Me too,' she admits.

The grin that slides up his face is the darkness of midnight suns as his fingers blaze a trail directly over her nipple. This time she catches the moan, before it can escape. Zuko's disappointment makes her smile, but he tries again unexpectedly and she hisses, tensing beneath him.

* * *

 **Kisses in the Dark IV**

'We should stop,' the firebender whispers against her lips minutes— hours, _years_ — later. He's panting almost as hard as she, and Katara's hips are snakes— writhing against the hard lines of Zuko's body. Stop? Not if she has anything to say about it.

She sucks his bottom lip into her mouth, rolls it along her tongue, drags on it like a piece of rock candy. Any insecurity or shame is gone, banished somewhere nearby in the grass beneath the pine.

He groans her name his hips pressing down to meet her own, rising. 'Really. We should.'

Katara sighs, releasing his lip. 'You've never kissed me like this before,' she whispers, opening her eyes to blink blearily up at him. 'And now you want to stop?'

'No.' He traces the outside of her mouth with his thumb before sighing and rolling off her and onto his back. 'I don't _want_ to, but we should.'

There's a throbbing between her thighs that itches, that the friction between them had kept at bay. Is the fire showing clear through her skin? She turns to face him but there doesn't seem to be much to say when her veins are singing and she can feel the glow of his touch like flames over her skin.

Zuko's lip twitches when she ducks her head against his shoulder and giggles. 'What?' he asks softly.

'Nothing,' she laughs, curving an arm across his chest. 'I'm just…' She searches for the word: somewhere in the realm of happy, but peppered with that delicious, deep pleasure and a touch of giddiness.

He doesn't wait for her to finish. 'Me, too,' he says instead, and she can feel the smile in his voice.

* * *

 **Creeping**

Back in the clothes of Zuko and Katara— crimson paint washed away, blue mask wrapped in black fabric— the waterbender and the firebender slip into camp silently. The others are sleeping soundly for the most part, Sokka snoring, Toph grunting. Aang, too, sleeps, his face pressed into the blankets of his camp bed.

The young airbender has settled in for the night between Zuko and Katara's cots.

Katara huffs once under her breath before gathering up her bedding and dropping it on the other side of Zuko's. 'I'll show him…' she mutters, jerking the sleeping bag straight and slipping out of her Water Tribe dress.

Zuko says nothing, but when she slides into bed— scooting as close to him as her cot will allow— he falls asleep with certainty and softness easing his usual scowl.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #5: Despite my age, progressive thoughts on sex and autonomy, and "you go girl" attitude… I feel weird about posting smut. What is that about? I'm gonna give myself a Freudian analysis on this but in the meantime: _Kisses_ , you guys! There were lots and lots of kisses :D**


	40. Chapter 40

**Forty chapters! This feels milestone-ish! I hope everyone's weeks have been grand, and if not I hope they've been bearable. Thanks to those of you who have sent me a PM with your thoughts about author's notes and/or story content** **—** **I love each and every one of them. My inbox is open to anyone :)**

* * *

 **The Innkeeper**

Zuko doesn't like the inn.

Well not the inn so much as its keeper. Zuko _really_ doesn't like the innkeeper. Well not _doesn't like_ so much as doesn't trust. Zuko really doesn't trust Hama the innkeeper.

But she's a Southern waterbender and Katara and Sokka haven't been this close to home in months. So he quiets his disquiet, eases his unease, and lets his waterbender have her bright eyes full of wonder, her tears of joy, of not being alone. Of not being the last. He doesn't share his concerns, his questions.

Instead he watches.

Instead he waits.

* * *

 **The Southern Waterbenders I**

While Sokka, Toph, and Aang play detective, hunting down some spirit stealing townspeople from the mountain, Zuko watches Hama. Under the guise of helping her, of assisting her, he watches the sly, sharp way she eyes up his waterbender like Ozai when Azula burns one of her handmaidens.

'Growing up in the South Pole, waterbenders are totally at home surrounded by snow and ice and seas.' The old woman holds out her hand for Zuko to help her across a small wooden footbridge. As she descends, snatching her hand free, she returns to ignoring him. 'But as you probably noticed on your travels, that isn't the case wherever you go.'

Katara scurries across, enthusiasm dancing like flames in her eyes. 'I know! When we were stranded in the desert, I felt like there was almost nothing I could do.'

'What are you talking about? You're great at using water in creative ways.' He eyes her meaningfully, thinking of a lady of paint whose waterbending is often invisible. 'Subtle ways.'

Hama flicks her fingers at him, _be quiet_. 'Nevertheless, a true master must learn to control water wherever it exists. In whatever form.'

'I've even used my own sweat for waterbending,' Katara chirps proudly, drawing abreast of Hama like a daughter chasing at the coattails of her mother.

Zuko doesn't miss the sly spark in the old woman's eye. 'That's very resourceful, Katara. You're thinking like a true master.'

* * *

 **The Southern Waterbenders II**

'Did you know you can even pull water out of thin air?'

In a movement that reminds him more of his sister's lightning forms than the smooth flow of his waterbender, Hama pulls water vapor from the air. It liquifies, sloshing like the ocean in a storm, and coats four of her fingers.

'Wow,' the girl ahead of him gasps, eyes shining.

Hama's voice takes on the colour of shadows. 'You have got to keep an open mind, Katara. There's water in places you never think about.'

She turns, too fast for a woman her age, and flicks her hand out in a _woosh!_ There are four solid _clunks_ as something hits the nearby tree. Zuko chills as though it were he who had been hit; the watery fingertips had solidified into sharp icy daggers. They stick from the tree where regular, unbent ice would have shattered.

But before him, Katara looks on in amazement.

* * *

 **The Southern Waterbenders III**

Again, Hama twists in bending forms too strenuous for her age with an ease that unsettles Zuko. In one swivelling motion, she kills a field of fire lilies to draw water from them. Zuko thinks of bending forms that are forbidden, of lava bending and the tyrants who destroyed entire islands with it. Of combustion bending and the taboo that marks its practitioners as outcasts.

'That was incredible!' Katara exclaims, rushing forward to grasp the old woman gleefully. However, the wilted flowers catch at her compassion. 'It's a shame about the lilies, though.'

'They're just flowers. When you're a waterbender in a strange land, you do what you must to survive. Tonight, I'll teach you…' The old woman acknowledges Zuko with a glare. 'Your friend isn't a waterbender, Katara. Perhaps he has some other way to occupy his time.'

'No,' he replies flatly. 'Nothing at all.'

'Zuko's fine,' Katara gushes to her new friend. 'He's a friend to the Water Tribes.'

Ozai's son feels the tension in him shift; glowing, radiant pride will do that.

Hama is less happy, she turns back to the village tugging at Katara until she bows her head to hear the old woman's whisper. 'Tonight, I'll teach you the ultimate technique of waterbending. It can only be done during the full moon, when your bending is at its peak.'

* * *

 **Gee, I wonder what she's going to show Katara…**

 **RHI trivia #6: Any Studio Ghibli fans here? Remember that scene in _Princess Mononoke_ where the protagonist says: "Look, everyone! This is what hatred looks like! This is what it does when it catches hold of you! It's eating me alive and very soon now it will kill me." Hama's cautionary tale. The old girl is kind of a tragic villain. She's so tortured by her hatred of the Fire Nation that she's twisted herself into someone just as cruel and morally corrupt as those she hates. What a great lesson, hey? Learn to forgive or become what you hate.**


	41. Chapter 41

**A Witch in the Night I**

Katara doesn't see the Blue Spirit, Aang, and Sokka arrive, she is busy fighting tooth and nail with a witch who has twisted the legacy of their people. A woman who has become poisoned and distorted in her years of subjugation under the genocide of the Fire Nation.

Katara is frightened: a part of her sympathises with Hama's anger.

Katara is betrayed: how could the only other waterbender from her tribe do this to her? Be this… _monster_.

'We know what you've been doing, Hama!' Sokka yells.

'Give up! You're outnumbered!' Aang advises.

The old woman twists and contorts into a smile. 'No. You've outnumbered yourselves.'

* * *

 **A Witch in the Night II**

Sokka is slashing jerkily at the air with his sword, Aang is being made to zoom around the clearing. The Blue Spirit is hacking and slashing his way closer.

All under the pull of the witch's strings.

'The Blue Spirit!' she cackles, and madness and power have never seemed closer. 'What friends you keep, Katara. Would be a shame if you _hurt them!_ '

All three boys turn towards her— stabbing, slashing, or shrieking.

She tries to be gentle with the nearest of them, Zuko beneath the blue and white mask, but her care results in two white hot ribbons of pain across her stomach. Twin dribbles of blood stain her skirt.

'No!' the voice behind the mask gasps when she shouts in pain but she doesn't give him the chance to say or slash anything else. The water hovering around her knocks him ten feet away and she turns to freeze Sokka's sword and Aang's body to two separate trees.

'Sorry!' she calls to them both.

Sokka's panicked expression chills her. 'Look out! Blue Spirit!'

* * *

 **A Witch in the Night III**

There is a moment where she thinks she has dodged Zuko's dao swords, a brief time of pure presence where she cannot think of the past or the future only the tickle of her breath, the pain in her wound and the dao sword she's missed by millimetres curving upwards to slash viciously at her upper arm.

The battle serenity of that suspended moment of pure focus shatters. As does the copper armband that protects her from losing a limb.

'Knock me down,' the Blue Spirit shouts as his body contorts and sails closer again. 'Katara! Shove me back and ice me down!'

Hama does not give them a chance. 'Don't hurt your friends, Katara! And don't let them hurt each other!'

She can't. There isn't enough water. There isn't enough _time!_

Sokka and his sword fly towards where Aang is suspended up against the tree. The Blue Spirit's left dao sword is turned against its master…

Tears track down her cheeks as she feels for it, for the blood in Hama's veins.

She finds it quick as breathing, quick as blinking.

Madness and power have never seemed closer.

* * *

 **Madness & Power**

The orchestra of Hama's body is a music Katara's never imagined. A whole body of water, of sloshing liquids, little highways of hot, red blood and Katara picks out a tune that brings the old woman to her knees. She flexes her fingers in Hama's insides and the older waterbender screeches.

Giddiness rides through her, hot like fire whisky.

But a hand on her stomach brings her back.

The Blue Spirit has shed his mask and has pulled his zukin over head to press to the dribbles of blood staining her Fire Nation clothes. She holds Hama still, but the interruption is enough to pull her from the wild abandon of the bloodbending.

'Zuko?!'

Bloodbending, it seems, has forced madness from Zuko too.

He looks up at Sokka and Aang with a spirit's mask at his feet.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #7: Bloodbending has always fascinated me for its character development potential (as you'll find out in subsequent chapters). A lot of Katara's identity and sense of self seems to be firmly planted in the "good girl" archetype but, guys, our girl is SO much more complex than that. She has darkness inside of her** **—** **as we all do** **—** **and the interesting thing about Katara is she's yet to learn that darkness doesn't necessarily mean "evil"….**

 **On that ominous note: How we all doing?**


	42. Chapter 42

**Sometimes I wish I could give your comments kudos, guys. Some really interesting metas there! If I haven't had a chance to reply, trust I'm loving them from afar!**

* * *

 **Identity Crisis**

Later, when the old witch is in chains and they've fled the village and the inn for the safety of the forest, Zuko and Katara tell their friends a tale. _The_ tale. Their tale. It takes half the night, but none of them feel much like sleeping. Not with Hama's wicked grin hovering too near in their memories.

'But… Zuko wasn't with us when all this Blue-Spirit-Painted-Lady stuff started.' Sokka waves a hand between them. 'You guys have been at this for _months!_ What gives?'

Katara looks to her unmasked companion; she's just as curious as Sokka. Zuko, meanwhile, is frowning at the campfire. 'At first it was a way for me to vent my anger at… my father. For banishing me. For sending Azula after me. When I heard about the Painted Lady… I thought only of an ally or leverage should I ever be caught.' He glances at her with apologies and firelight in his eyes. 'When I saw your face, realised who you were… I don't know what made me not follow you back to Aang. It just… sort of… happened.'

'Man, you guys were even more messed up before you met me,' Toph exclaims, shaking her head.

'So _that's_ why you and Zuko have been sneaking off each night,' Aang laughs nervously. 'I thought you guys were kissing or something.'

Something like sanity finally returns to Katara. _This_ , she decides, _this is one good thing I can do to prove I'm not like_ her.

'Actually, Aang...' She doesn't need to reach far to find the firebender's hand. It is still and steady, calloused like her own but otherwise wholly different. Large where hers is slight, hot where hers always seem to run cooler, but familiar. Every day, more and more familiar.

Sokka rolls his eyes but Toph yawns. Loudly. 'Yeah, yeah, what else is new?'

And just like that, Katara's paints and Zuko's mask are discovered, explained, and accepted.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #8: This scene is sooooo long overdue, for a bunch of reasons. (I'm happy to keep up these snippets of meta if you guys are digging it btw? Let me know!) As much as we've all enjoyed sneaking-around!zutara, I feel like it's time to transition into out-loud-and-proud!zutara. I've got a whole Word Doc and a notebook dedicated to my characterisation building for this lot. In my little AU, Sokka and Toph had an inkling of what was going on (both with the romance and, for Toph, the vigilantism) but Aang's been feeling left out ever since he woke up from his coma. Poor wee man is used to being the centre of the group and Zuko's arrival has sort of changed the group dynamic.**


	43. Chapter 43

**This chapter shall informally be known as The Chapter in Which Zuko Attempts to Banter.**

* * *

 **Interlude VIII**

In the bright Fire Nation skies, in the hours just after the setting of the full moon, a sky bison groans amongst the clouds. On his back, an earthbender is chortling long and loud and a Water Tribe warrior is as red as the dawn.

'Hey Sparky,' she calls over the whipping winds. 'Do you wanna know what Sokka said about your masked alter-ego?'

Sokka is practically spluttering with indignation. 'I thought he was an overly dramatic, cape wearing drama queen,' he announces loudly.

'That's not true, Sokka,' Aang pipes up from Appa's head. 'You said the Blue Spirit was as manly as Water Tribe men because he wore blue.'

The older boy groans. 'Aang! Ixnay on the anlymay!' He swivels to the firebender at the back of the saddle. 'I didn't. I really didn't. He's crazy. One too many boulders to the head.'

Toph's grin is wickedness itself. 'Would you like a boulder to the head?' she asks in a voice of sickly syrup. 'It might erase your memory of this conversation.'

'It's alright, Sokka,' Zuko says over the other boy's bickering with the cackling earthbender. 'Katara's already told me what you said about the Blue Spirit.' A hesitant grin breaks over the firebender's face. 'Do you want me to make out the autograph to just _Sokka_ or _Sokka, The Manly?_ '

The others fall about laughing, but the Water Tribe boy is too busy spluttering to come up with a reply.

* * *

 **Interlude IX**

The Avatar and his friends meet up with the invasion force in the days before the eclipse. There are reunions, tears, laughter, and some arctic seal wine; music night is resurrected for the occasion. The Water Tribe men perform a hunting dance and their chief spies his daughter whispering in the ear of the scarred boy. The Firelord's son.

He seeks out the boy later that evening and finds him holding his daughter's hand surrounded by his son, the Avatar, and the blind earthbender. Hakoda watches them for a time, listens to the children's hopeful anxiety for the day that awaits them in the morning.

For the first time since before his wife's death, hope for the state of the world blooms in the shallow space his heart once lived.

* * *

 **Of Eclipses & Invasions**

Rumour has it that a rag-tag group of rebels, warriors, and volunteers manage to break through the great Gates of Azulon and storm the Fire Nation capital— the first success in the war against the Fire Nation since General Iroh's failed siege on Ba Sing Se. Rumour has it this is where the success stops.

'But they had an eclipse on their side, didn't they?' Ming asks Aunt Wu with desperation etched into every line of her frown. 'How could they have lost when the firebenders had no bending?'

The fortune-teller does not consult her crystals and bones; there are somethings she doesn't want to know. 'This is war, Ming, there are a dozen ways to fight it. But do not worry for your Avatar friend, something tells me he would not be so easily captured.' A memory: bones splintering under the pressure of flames and destiny, a boy consumed by the fates. 'Not now, at least.'

The girl strokes flat her messy curls. 'I hope they're alright,' she prays, squeezing her eyes shut. Aang, the sceptical guy, even that _hussy_. 'Please, Painted Lady, help my friends be safe…'

Aunt Wu smiles softly at her assistant while the realities of war weigh heavily on her heart.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #9: Not so much trivia as bad news… There's not much I can post between now and finishing the first draft of the rest of the story :/ there's some continuity stuff I need to keep fluid while figuring out the ending. Let's be bears and prepare ourselves for a smol Rumour Has It hibernation** **—** **_Sorry._ If you want to get writing updates (including excerpts) find me on tumblr (same username as here).**

 **Love, from Author.**


	44. Chapter 44

**We're back! With a disappointingly short chapter… Sorry bout that. To make up for it, I'm actually going to post three disappointingly short chapters all at once.**

 **Huge megaphone-amplified shout out to jonathyn who has been amazing at both answering emails quicker than Azula can shoot lightning and beta'ing like a boss. Many many thanks to you, good sir. Also to that lovely Guestie who gently prodded me to keep you guys in the loop over on tumblr. You weren't rude or pushy at all and your lovely comments actually prompted me to sit down and work on the little plot problems I was having so** **—** **thank you!**

* * *

 **The Invasion: Sokka's Decision**

The city is empty, Aang tells them. The palace, the houses. Everyone's gone. No servants, no nobles, no townspeople, no Firelord.

'No,' Sokka whispers as projectiles whistle overhead. They— Sokka, Aang, Toph, Zuko, Bato, Katara, and a wounded Hakoda— are crouched behind an upturned caterpillar tank. Bato is outlining their route up the volcano but there is defeat in his eyes. It's there in Hakoda's, too.

'What do we do?' the Avatar asks anxiously.

Sokka looks to Zuko, looks for anything to save them. 'They knew,' he tells the Firelord's son. 'Where would they go? If they knew there was going to be an attack, where would they hide?'

'The Dragonbone Catacombs,' the Fire Prince says, all flames and determination. The twin swords in his hands are filthy with soot and blood and Sokka thinks of the mask that matches the swords. 'In the past, Firelords have used the bunkers down there as a refuge. It's the only place close enough for us to reach in time.'

Determination grips the Water Tribe boy. 'Let's go. Zuko and Toph, you too.' He turns to his sister, but she's bent over their father's wound, her face lined with worry. 'Katara…'

'Go,' she tells them. 'Someone needs to stay here and lead the invasion.'

Sokka glows with pride, with love for his sister. 'Be safe.'

She looks at him then, looks right at him. 'You too.'

This is their first mistake: staying when they should have fled.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #10: Part of the reason for the update drought was the invasion. I'd written it all (as well as most of the rest of the story) but there are some things that happen during the invasion that have bearing on the rest of the story. I had to make sure that the rest was compliant with said events… there were a few details that needed changing. Phew… writing is not a linear process, hombre. The wordsmith is le tired.**


	45. Chapter 45

**The Invasion: Toph's Discovery**

'Do you feel anything down there?

 _I feel everything everywhere_ , Toph thinks grimly. That's how she knows that Sokka's heart isn't here, it's back with his bleeding father. That's how she knows the usually steady heartbeat of the firebender is galloping with anxiety. That's how she knows that their Avatar is seconds from tears or running far, far away. It's up to her to be the solid one, to ground them all. She punches the ground, pierces the earth with her fingers. 'There are natural tunnels criss-crossing through the inside of the volcano. And something else… There's something big, dense, and made of metal deep in the heart of the volcano.'

'The bunker,' Zuko supplies.

'Sounds like a secret bunker to me,' Sokka agrees.

They would have failed three times over if not for Toph. In carving out a path, in dodging lakes of molten rock, in prying open the steel door to Ozai's bunker. Even more than Zuko's knowledge of the caverns, Toph gets them to the bunker before the eclipse truly begins. She breaks through the metal as if were no different to regular earth, peels it open until Sokka is almost crying her praise.

Until they see who is sitting on the throne.

This is their second mistake: staying when they should have fled.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #11: Toph is often the glue that keeps this lot from falling to pieces. Much like Katara, she is _very_ under appreciated.**


	46. Chapter 46

**The Eclipse**

'Azula,' Zuko growls. Hatred burns him hot as fire even as he feels the eclipse steal his bending.

'Zuzu,' she simpers, smirking broadly. 'And friends. How nice.' Her gaze drifts towards Aang, silent in his shock. 'So you survived? Pity, but I had a hunch you did. It doesn't matter, of course. We've known about the invasion for months.'

Aang sobers. 'Where is he? Where is the Firelord?'

'Hm, you mean I'm not good enough for you? You're hurting my feelings.'

Sokka brandishes his sword and demands answers but Zuko already knows how this little game plays out. Azula plans two steps ahead and they are already a minute into a ten-minute eclipse. They do not have the time for Dai Li agents and his sister's acrobatics. He knows from painful lessons during their childhood how adept she is at offense; her defence and evasion is just as potent.

Aang seconds his thoughts precious minutes later. 'I can't pin her down. She's too quick.'

Zuko pulls the younger boy from the chase. 'She's toying with us. You need to leave. Go find my father.'


	47. Chapter 47

**BellaOfTheTower: Your panicked review made me evil-laugh out loud. You know me too well...**

* * *

 **The Invasion: Aang's Mistake**

The young Avatar— scared, unprepared— watches the Firelord's son with wide, wide eyes; Zuko takes pity on him. 'Take Sokka and Toph, I'll hold Azula. You can still do this, Aang.'

'What about you?' the monk asks as Sokka and Toph trot back to where they stand. On the far side of the room, the Dai Li agents stand guard before the princess and her smirks.

'I can handle Azula,' Zuko says in a hard voice and Aang thinks of the murder Katara told him about in the Crystal Catacombs.

'Zuko, revenge won't give you the peace you want.'

'She killed my uncle,' Zuko shouts, the harsh syllables of _killed_ echoing like a handful of gravel against the cavern walls. The scarred boy glares at Aang but speaks to Sokka. 'Take him and go find my father.'

Sokka leans forward furiously. 'We're not leaving you behind!'

The snake's voice carries, sinister and clear, across the misshapen hall. 'You failed to attend Uncle's funeral, Zuzu. That's dishonourable, even for you. I wonder who'll show up for your funeral when I kill your new friends.'

Zuko turns to his sister, boiling with fury. 'Go,' he snaps at the others. 'Find Ozai. I have unfinished business with my sister.'

This is their third mistake: leaving when they should have stayed.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #12: Not cool, Azula. Using the uncle _you_ murdered as a taunt to rile up your brother… so supremely uncool, lady. This isn't even trivia, just straight up shade on her shade.**


	48. Chapter 48

**The Invasion: Zuko's Revenge**

'How is your waterbending friend?' the serpent with his sister's face asks in tones of venom. 'I don't see her here holding your hand this time. Did you finally come to your senses?'

 _Control in firebending comes from the breath_ , a voice whispers into the flames of his anger. _Be your breath, Prince Zuko_.

'You have to know it would never work out, brother. Not you as Firelord, not her as your Lady. Never in a million years of comets and eclipses would our people accept that, let alone _Father_.'

'You killed Uncle Iroh,' he shouts at her, over her. Over the snake's words that sink like stones inside of him. 'You looked me in the eye and you _murdered_ him!'

'Oh, Zuzu, so dramatic. That's what happens in war. Uncle chose the wrong side.'

'He was our family and you killed him!'

'We're going in circles, Zuko. Why don't you run after your little friends?'

Not a hint of remorse, no glimmer of regret. 'I'm going to get you for what you did to him,' he snarls at her but there are footsteps and shouting in the corridor at his back. Within his chest are lungs that breathe his inner flame awake as the eclipse passes. He springs like a rabbit-deer, deadly and quick, flames roaring from his fist and—

—a wall of earth lurches into the air between he and his serpent sister, his fire splattering impotently against its sheer size. A hand on his shoulder revives him: Sokka.

'Come on,' Toph is shouting. 'We need to go! Now!'

This is their fourth mistake: too little, too late.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #13: The Fire Nation Head Canon Edition. I've written stories in the past in which the Fire Nation accepts a foreign woman as Fire Lady and feel it could work, however, I'm an indecisive human at heart and there's part of me that thinks it could _also_ be almost impossible. I can certainly see Azula using it as a way to get into Zuko's head and mess with him. The Fire Nation is clearly a very proud and traditional place and incredibly unstable in the post-war period. I believe that that instability wouldn't lend itself well to _more_ foreign intervention (on top of reparations, post-war disarmament, the changes in their economy etc). Thoughts? **


	49. Chapter 49

**The Invasion: Katara's War**

Katara assists her father as best she can whilst shouting orders to the swampbenders, earthbenders, and her tribesmen. She is glowing with her power to heal one moment, slashing through firebenders with water whips the next.

Then she is bloodbending.

It's easy, too easy, to reach inside the enemy and have them sabotage their battlements for her. She can take two bodies, no three— five, seven! If she can reach inside of those canals of water in enough of her enemy, perhaps she won't have to lose another parent. Or have someone else's parent lost.

This is her mistake: thinking she is bloodbending for anything other than the giddy rush it brings her.

She discovers this too late. When she has crippled two dozen Fire Nation soldiers with her bloody touch. Only then does she straighten from the crooked bending forms, their agony a distant backdrop to the chaos of battle around her.

Through the smoke— and her growing horror— she sees Appa appear over the lip of the volcano.


	50. Chapter 50

**The Invasion: Failed**

'It was a trap,' is all Zuko says when the four of them touch down beside Katara and Hakoda.

'Azula had planned everything, we didn't even see Ozai,' Sokka fills them in tersely. 'We need to get everyone down to the beach, to the subs.'

Aang nods, determined, even as a dozen airships soar overhead. 'I'll slow them down!'

But Hakoda and Bato are grimmer than ever. 'No,' Katara's father announces, straightening as best he can. 'You kids are going to escape on Appa.'

Katara has always experienced outrage as hot, smoky combustion. But the feeling that trawls through her now is bone chillingly cold. 'What? No!' A memory: her father's face shrinking into the distance on a war canoe as she sobs into Sokka's shoulder. 'We can't leave you again! We won't leave anyone behind!'

She watches Hakoda pull himself out from behind his pain, fold the agony down tight until he stands, master, above it. 'You're our only chance in the long run. You and Sokka have to go with Aang somewhere safe.'

She looks to Aang first, but the young Avatar has tears streaming down his face. Sokka is ashen but she can see he'll agree with their father. Even Zuko looks defeated. Somewhere in her bag there are crimson paints and her courage. She won't let the Fire Nation do this, not again—

A hand on her shoulder grounds her fury. 'Katara.' Hakoda folds her into a hug that bruises her lungs. 'Please.'

* * *

 **Dirty Grief**

As she watches the adults shrink into the distance, Katara finds she cannot weep. There are no tears, not now at least. Her grief isn't clean like the last time her father was stolen away by this war.

No, this isn't the grief of an innocent.

The blood of the Fire Nation soldiers sings to her from beneath the cloud layer rapidly hiding the failed invasion from view. It sings like sirens or wolf seals or her mother in her dreams. She feels the pull of its magic warp her grief for her father and in the fertile soils left behind, more insidious things begin to grow.

'Where will we go?' The Duke is asking from his place between Zuko and Teo.

'I know a place we can hide for a while,' Aang says in notes of steel. 'The Western Air Temple.'

Temples— their implied peace and tranquility— are the furthest thing from Katara's mind. 'Running again,' she mutters loud enough for them all to hear. 'The war will never end at this rate.'

No one contradicts her, no one calls the girl of hope on the despair in her words.

Just now, with the stench of defeat stained deep in their clothes, no one knows how.


	51. Chapter 51

**Azula Always Lies I**

Sunsets at the ruins of the Western Air Temple are more tranquil than Zuko's mood at the best of times. But now? He's holding cold stones, rocks crumbled from the temple walls. He reaches back to fling one as hard as he can— so hard it hurts the muscles in his arm— and watches it disappear into the gorge below.

 _You have to know it would never work out, brother. Not you as Firelord, not her as your Lady._

Uncle Iroh was supposed to be Firelord, not him. He hasn't given it much thought, his responsibilities after the war, the crushing weight of them. The duty to his people, to the throne. The second stone he throws more viciously. It cuts his finger on its way down, down…

 _Never in a million years of comets and eclipses would our people accept a waterbender, let alone Father._

He throws the remaining two rocks to the ground beside him and one of them cracks into shards. It's shattering interrupts the quiet babble of voices around the campfire far behind him. He feels seven pairs of eyes shift his way before Sokka continues his anecdote about swords or girls or something equally as infuriating.

Zuko doesn't join them.

His sister's words are his unwelcome company now.

* * *

 **Azula Always Lies II**

That night, the waterbender takes rooms far from his own. He tries not to feel upset at this— singes his dinner bowl instead— she's taken herself far away from everyone, after all, not just him. It's not personal.

It doesn't feel that way though.

There are no towns near enough for a nightly excursion in masks and paint so when she excuses herself from dinner he leaves the dishes to Aang and Sokka so he can catch her.

And finds tundra where once he'd known a girl of sunshine and smiles.

'What?' she greets him in the lower corridor of the temple.

Zuko widens his stance in case the vertigo is physical. No, the floor isn't moving. Why, then, does he feel like he's missed a step in the dark? 'Are you okay?' Then quieter: 'Is it your father?'

She shoots him a look of such disgust that he takes half a step back. 'I don't want to talk about my father,' she snaps. 'I want to go to bed.'

An argument nearly flies from his lips, but he swallows it before it can escape. The waterbender is braced for a fight. Though she's washed the blood and muck of the invasion from her dress and face, she looks as thirsty for battle as she had during the fighting earlier that day.

Zuko decides it's best to lay down his swords.

He takes a step back, bowing his head in farewell. If this is what she wants…

He swears he can hear her snarl as she turns away.


	52. Chapter 52

**The Avatar Firebending I**

The Avatar isn't _listening_.

'Harder!' Zuko barks at him; the boy's fire isn't hot enough to singe a twig let alone a Firelord. 'More ferocious!'

Aang glowers at his teacher over his shoulder. 'Urg! I'm trying! Maybe if you gave me more instructions…'

'I've told you everything you need; the rest is up to you. Now shut up, breathe deep into your core, and _roar!_ '

The boy's hurt expression doesn't touch the iron around Zuko's heart. He takes a shaky breath, his fingertips touching in a moment of the briefest meditation, before he slides his feet into the stance and turrets of flame rush from his fists and his mouth. As he completes the form, he turns to Zuko excitedly, his grudge against the older boy forgotten in the joy of success.

 _Never in a million years of comets and eclipses would our people accept a waterbender..._

'Passable,' Zuko snaps. 'Fifty hot squats before you can finish for the day.'

'Fifty!'

But the exiled prince has turned his back on his student, the torment in his sister's words echoing dimly throughout the self-sabotaging fields of his mind.

* * *

 **The Avatar Firebending II**

Aang and Zuko begin to flow, a well-matched team, somewhere around the fourth repetition of each form. Sokka has taken to sitting at the edge of their training area— a sheltered courtyard on the lowest level of the temple— while stuffing his face full of fire flakes and calling heckles to the two benders.

Katara joins her brother only to keep him in line.

'You're distracting Aang!' she tells him irritably, whacking his shoulder hard enough to send his fire flakes cascading to the ground.

'My flakes!'

'Shh!'

If she is honest with herself, Sokka's loud-mouthed distraction is as welcome as water to sunburnt skin. When she is alone, eyes trained on her friends with flames in their hands, it's all too easy to feel the pulse of their blood, raised with exertion.

'Hey, Sokka,' Aang hollars. 'Watch th— ow!'

'You can airbend as many scooters as you like on your own time.' Zuko folds his arms across his chest. 'Now, the Salamander Form. Again!'

Katara's heart catches in her throat at the low hum of blood she can feel throb in the Fire Prince. She stands abruptly, and flees the courtyard while a voice that cackles with Hama's hatred coos to her:

 _Imagine the power, to wield fire through the blood of another…_

* * *

 **The Avatar Firebending III**

Aang ends each lesson by seeking out Sokka, Toph, and Katara— always Katara— to showcase his progress for the day. In Zuko's less charitable moments, he allows disgust for the boy's boastfulness to solidify into resentment. Especially when the blue-eyed waterbender is among the Avatar's most vocal supporters. But in the moments when the other's turn away, Zuko catches sight of the sheer panic in the boy's shaking hands and berates himself for his cruelty.

The Avatar's courage is hanging on a wire.

When he and Katara are chopping vegetables for dinner that night, elbow to elbow, he breaches her stony silence to confide his concerns.

'I'm worried about Aang.' Behind his eyes, in the deepest, most vulnerable parts of his mind, his sister whispers, _our people would never accept a Lady of Water_.

Katara jumps and glances at him with razor blade eyes. 'Aang's fine.' She turns back to the carrots before her, slicing angrily through them and nicking her hand in the process. 'Ouch! Spirits!'

Zuko sets down his knife, reaching for the finger weeping crimson, but she snatches it away. 'It's just a scratch.'

'Katara, you're bleeding.'

'I said its fine!'

He doesn't like it, this feeling. She's given him so many wonderful ones: tender, heated, loving moments. But this one? This standing out in the cold while the light of her warmth shines in the far distance? It hurts like a burn.

He takes the knife dotted with her blood from where she dropped it. 'I'll get you some water from the fountain,' he says. It's his excuse to leave the kitchen. His reason for giving her the space she clearly desires.

There's a full barrel of water beneath the bench they'd stood before only moments ago, elbow-to-elbow.


	53. Chapter 53

**Without Saying Goodbye I**

He's relieved, in a way, once he and Sokka are airborne in the war balloon, en route for their "hunting trip."

These past few days, life in the temple has felt less like living and more like being caged. He wakes with the dawn, meditates, practices firebending with the Avatar, heats water for their breakfast of rice and curry, and wrestles with the sting of the waterbender's coldness. To the Avatar, she is nothing but warm days and dappled shade. _You're doing so well, Aang. I'm so proud of you, Aang. Make sure you finish your breakfast Aang_. He's not jealous per se. Not in the way you'd expect.

It's her smiles he's wounded by, the ones she bestows on the boy and (occasionally, coupled with an eye roll) her brother.

It mixes his insides up. He's angry now, more than he's been since he was first banished. His temper bubbles to the tune of Azula's smug accusation and the girl he can't seem to say the right thing to.

Yes, he's relieved. But also…

He thinks of the peaceful expression he'd spied on Katara's sleeping face as he and Sokka snuck out. He thinks of that a lot over the next few days. But most of all he thinks about how the Fire Nation would never accept her with a crown in her hair.

Relief is not something he has the luxury for right now.

* * *

 **Without Saying Goodbye II**

The day Zuko disappears on a hunting trip with her brother, Katara makes her excuses and spends the day by the forest streams to the south. She cannot be expected to deal with their absence —that feels all too close to abandonment— _and_ cage the monstrousness tangling inside of her. Hama's legacy.

 _What about me?_ A pitiful and furious voice asks. _What if I would have liked to go hunting?_

The darkness inside of her, the one thirsting for the power of bloodbending, thrills and preens. It senses its opportunity in her moment of weakness. She becomes aware of squirrel-rats in the trees above her. Isn't that how Hama learned? _The rats that scurried across the floor of my cage were nothing more than skins filled with liquid_.

It doesn't feel like a choice anymore.

She cries as she reaches out with those spidery bending forms, sobs as she finds the liquid highways in the small animals, weeps when Hama is wrong and Katara's strength and skill means she doesn't need a full moon to bring the little creatures scurrying down their tree.

There's something… cathartic in it. The blood song. The giving in. The jerk of her fingers as she makes them circle, scurry, dance.

She breathes for the first time in days.

The shame is still there, though, despite the reprieve of peace. Always the shame.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #14: Did everyone catch that bloodbending is a metaphor for feminine empowerment and how demonised it can be? Yes? Good? Alright, on with the show!**


	54. Chapter 54

**The Darkness Interlude**

She dares to ask herself _the_ question on the long walk back to the temple: _Why_?

'Why does it feel so good?' She allows the words out past terrified lips as she stumbles over sticks and boulders. Why can't waterbending be enough? Why can't her Octopus Stance and water whips and ice disks be her power? Why this seductive lure of blood and moral greys so dark they're practically black?

The interested reader might take a moment to grieve the consequences of war and cultural genocide. Had Katara grown up in a Southern Water Tribe with the elders of old— the rites of the maiden, the Glacier Priestesses of the Long Night— she would have learned of the blood mysteries; the death magic of that sisterhood. How else does life cycle in a place of constant ice and snow? Where the soil sleeps ten months of the year and nothing rots, only freezes? She would have been initiated into her birthright: water is the source of all life and for life to be, so too must there be death.

Katara is every bit as much the waterbender as she is the bloodbender. She did not learn this from Hama; that old, broken woman's revenge is nothing but a scar on the surface of the Southern blood mysteries. Teachings of healing deeper than the skin, of reading a person's truth in their veins, of balance, destiny, and deep feminine honour.

But she grew up in a world at war and was shown the distorted aspect of bloodbending.

And now she feels herself evil because of it.

Even worse.

She blames Zuko, blames the stains on his own soul for tainting hers.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #15: BellaOfTheTower said in a review: "The very nature of bloodbendong implies lack of consent and it's blatant violation and lack of control that all in all, leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. However, I did always like bloodbending. Though it is in fact a terrifying and deeply disturbing power."**

 **^ YES. Yesyesyes! This sort of problematic, conflicting shit is storytelling gold. I've always interpreted bloodbending as forgotten lore of the waterbenders (no offense Hama, but you can't possibly be the first). In my headcanon, there was once a rich and thriving culture in the Northern and Southern Water Tribes and bloodbending would have had a place in that culture. And there's something about bloodbending that feels… feminine. Like a priestesses/pagan maybe even sacrificial thing. And as with any tool or weapon, I don't think its inherently good or evil, it's how each bender uses it that matters. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.**


	55. Chapter 55

**Rumour Has It VII**

New prisoners arrive and with them Sokka's father.

And news from the Earth Kingdom.

While Sokka is disguised as a guard and sneaking into Hakoda's cell to plot escape, Zuko is bound to a chair, guarded by two of the worst gossipers in his father's employ.

'Did you hear what that that new prisoner with the nose ring said? About the string of refugee murders in the Earth Kingdom?'

The second guard— older and rounder than the first— rolls his eyes. 'You watch too many Ember Island Player's shows, Chan.' The man's next words make Zuko as cold as Katara's ice disks. 'Besides it's not murder when we're at war.'

The younger man looks affronted at the slight. Not the murders themselves, Zuko notices. 'So? Killing's killing, ain't it?'

'Yeah, killing's killing. Too bad for the dirtswine their precious Blue Spirit seems to have abandoned them.'

Zuko glowers at the older guard through the slit in his cell door while unease swirls in his belly.

'You don't like the Blue Spirit?'

' _You_ do? Grow up, Chan. That scum's a nice bedtime story for children but he's a criminal. Him and that heretic masquerading as the Painted Lady.'

Chan is silent for long enough that Zuko silently begs the weedy man to ask—

'But it's refugees that're being killed, isn't it?'

'Well shame on the criminals for not sticking by their people. Shame on that Blue Spirit for abandoning them.'

Shame arrives, thick as the blood of dead refugees. No one opens the door to let it in, but Zuko's new visitor makes itself comfortable in the familiar cracks on his soul.

* * *

 **Rumour Has It VIII**

It's the trip to the market, the day before Sokka and Zuko return with gifts of friendship and fatherhood, that it happens.

Katara, Aang, and Haru fly Appa to the edge of the forest and walk to the nearest fishing village for supplies. It is a bustling town, the centre of the local peninsula's trade. For Katara, after so long in the quiet of the Western Air Temple's ruins, the onslaught of people is less than—

'Amazing!' Aang shouts, fist pumping the air as he runs from the hog-monkey stall to the puppet show across the plaza laughing.

'He doesn't really do subtle, does he?' Haru asks stiffly, glancing between the vendor's side-eyeing Aang.

Katara opens her mouth to respond when she is distracted by her name on a stranger's lips: _Painted Lady_.

'Thirteen?!'

'That's what the merchant told Gako last night.'

The first speaker, a frazzled woman with two babies in arm, is stone. 'Not the colonies, surely?'

'I'm telling you, Mi, ever since the Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit stopped showing up in the Earth Kingdom, there's been more violence than ever. Those thirteen villages aren't the only casualties…'

Mi grabs the second woman harshly. 'Please, you know my boy's over there fighting.'

The women clasp hands; desperation grasping compassion. 'I know, Mi, I know. But it's the girls I pray for. The men of the village were slaughtered but their girls… they say the old family syndicates have begun selling them for their… flower.'

Sickness swirls in Katara's stomach. _No…_

Aang bounds over to wrestle coins from her money pouch. 'Come on, Katara! There are melons and papaya and—'

'No!'

Her shout makes the young monk flinch but she's beyond caring. _We weren't there for them. People need us and we're not there._ How many young girls raped and sold to the highest bidder? She shoves the purse into Haru's hands. 'Can you— Will you—?'

The earthbender takes the pouch, nodding firmly. 'It's okay, Aang and I can finish up here.'

Katara doesn't argue. She flees the market place.

* * *

 **Can I just say: the readers and reviewers of this story must be some of the best on the whole wide internet. I asked for your thoughts on Fire Nation customs and Katara as Fire Lady + the challenges she'd face and boy did you guys deliver! I've been reading over your comments and you guys raise some great points. Drawing parallels between historical and current socio-political trends, metas on my metas, critiques of storytelling and realism** **—** **I'm freaking loving it! Special shout out to comments by BellaOfTheTower, Mauve_Avenger, TheCost_OfArt, and Guest (are you the same Guestie whose been cheerleading for me from the reviews? If so: heck yes! If not: welcome!). Also, born as a nebulae** **—** **I haven't had time yet to reply to your review but I have like a thousand things to say!**

 **You guys never fail to make my day at least 3 shades brighter each time an email drops into my inbox with your thoughts on the story. Much love from me to you 3**


	56. Chapter 56

**Lady Mai**

When Zuko and Mai were children, and Azula was busy tormenting Ty Lee or servants or the turtle ducks, they would practice with knives in the royal gardens. Mai was always quicker, more sly, subtle. Her sleeves barely twitched and a sebon would appear in the trunk of a nearby bloodwood tree.

Zuko remembers the girl. How softly she spoke, the way her eyes were always cast to the mud.

They're not now.

As the gondola gets away, she stares after him. Her back straight, her head tall.

'Who in the name of seal blubber and snow drifts is that?' Sokka is shouting over the creak of the gondola.

It's Mai.

She is saving them.

Mai is saving them all and allowing herself to be captured.

A knot forms in Zuko's throat as his uncle's teachings on honour and loyalty ring loud and significant in his memory.

'It's Mai,' he tells Sokka in a scratchy voice.

The girl who taught him to throw knives.

* * *

 **Breaking Point I**

Not even her father stepping off that airship breaks the spiderwebs of ice around Katara's heart. She hugs him like the little girl he left behind on that ice shelf, but something about it makes her angry. Over Hakoda's shoulder she makes eye contact with Zuko.

That fractures the ice immediately with heat.

Heat and fury and betrayal.

She douses the flames by closing her eyes and squeezing her father as tight as she can.

Later that night, she and Zuko prepare the meal in silence. He approaches in silence, takes up his paring knife in silence, and she points to the root vegetables that need peeling in silence. Only the _clop_ of the knives against the bamboo chopping boards dare breach the quiet. Katara feels her anger grow with every carrot slice he slides towards her. _You may not have burned me, but you've scarred me with your curse just the same_ , the venomous thought plays again and again.

 _I'm tainted because of you_.

It's ugly. It's never pretty, blaming someone for the darkness of your own soul. And Katara refuses to vent her accusations, so on she boils, the steam of her fury building into an unbearable pressure on her heart.

 **For those interested in extra meta and comments, head over to my tumblr - .com**

 **I just posted a meta about bloodbending that I think you guys would like!**


	57. Chapter 57

**Breaking Point II**

The next day, when Azula wakes them with violence, Zuko saves them all and nearly plummets to his death in the process. Katara makes sure she catches him; it makes them even. Later, when they've pitched tents on another picturesque Fire Nation island, Sokka raises his cup to the firebender. Katara can barely contain her fury.

'To Zuko!' her brother cries. 'Who knew after all those times he tried to snuff us out, today he'd be our hero.'

'Here, here!' the others cry— all but Katara. Aang even nudges the firebender jovially, Toph gives him one of her punches that are hugs in disguise.

Zuko, is almost shy under the attention. 'I'm touched,' he says in a voice as raw as Katara's hands after Aang burned them. 'I don't deserve this.'

'Yeah,' she snarls over the joyful moment. 'No kidding.'

She catches a snapshot of hurt— of a beat animal flinching before another attack— before she stands and walks away.

Sokka's voice follows her into the darkness at the edge of their camp fire. 'What's with her?'

'I wish I knew,' the prince says and Katara remembers the first time he spoke from beneath the mask back in Ba Sing Se. Remembers the anger, the betrayal. It seems to be pattern of his.

'What's with him?'

 _His family, Sokka,_ she replies viciously in the silence of her mind. _They're all rotten to the bone._

* * *

 **Excuses I**

'Katara.'

Her fists are clenching around accusations. 'Don't.'

'Why won't you talk to me?'

He waits, so does she.

'Ever since the invasion—'

'Have you heard?' she interrupts, and a gust of wind punctures his surprise. 'The rumours? From the Earth Kingdom? Have you heard what's been happening since we left?'

'Since we? You mean—'

'The Painted Lady.' She narrows her eyes. 'And the Blue Spirit.'

He is Crystal Catacomb stalagmite, sharp and cold. 'I heard something. At the Boiling Rock, before Mai came and—'

Charcoal. Her tongue tastes of charcoal. 'Mai?'

* * *

 **Excuses II**

'Katara—'

She laughs, high and brittle. The coastal gusts tear the bitter sound from her lips and send it far out to sea. 'No, do you know what? I really don't care right now about your girlfriend—'

'She's not my girlfriend—'

'—but I'm _so_ glad you had company while my brother and father were _risking their lives_ —'

'She's the only reason we all escaped!'

Katara feels his anger in the speeding of his blood. 'I don't care! I don't care about Mai or toasting you! There are people suffering because we're _here_ and not _there!_ ' Her voice catches, the ice splintering for a painful second. She takes a moment to claw the shards back. 'We're more powerful than ever and we're doing nothing. Camping out and going on little journeys. Do you know what I heard a few days ago? I was at the market and these women were talking about the old family syndicates in the Earth Kingdom. They're _slaughtering_ whole villages, taking the girls and selling them for— for…'

She remembers a time where the face before her wore only one expression, at least it was the only one she'd ever seen on him: rage. But shock? Disgust? Queasiness?

She brushes the angry-tears aside, crossing her arms over her chest. 'I know we're here for Aang and that training him will help end the war, but it's not enough.' _I'm not helping the people who need me_. 'We have to do something.'

* * *

 **Excuses III**

It's not why she's mad at him.

He knows that. There's something lurking serpent-like, clouded by fear, in her eyes. The village massacres are not why she's been avoiding him, but they're something.

And something, he can work with.

'Pack your bags.' The salient prong of the Earth Kingdom directly north-east of them is home to Hamaku, trading capital of the region. A city of that size is bound to house a contingent of the mafia. 'If we take Appa we'll be there before dark tomorrow.'

'Where?'

He doesn't smile but excitement trickles like fire whiskey up his spine. 'If any criminal syndicates are running out of the region, they're sure to have a headquarters in Hamaku.'

She grins slow and deadly, and heat of a different kind licks at him. Low. 'You pack. I'll talk to Aang about Appa.'

Zuko is almost ashamed of what her words do his body. Her words, and that look in her eyes. 'Ten minutes,' he promises over the howling wind.

Together, they turn back to camp.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #16: Your author is distance bending! If canon Katara and Zuko can make it allllll the way from the Western Air Temple to Whale Tail Island and back for _The Southern Raiders_ in like 2 days then we're going to distance bend them across the sea to the Earth Kingdom for more vigilante times. The story's probably going to earn a rating upgrade soon too…**


	58. Chapter 58

**Aang's Anxiety**

He doesn't understand.

He's training his hardest, firebending every morning then earthbending well into the afternoon. He's doing everything he can to be ready for the comet. To end the war. Why do they have to go?

'How long?' Sokka's asking, his face as unreadable as the sea ice of his home.

'A week. Maybe two.'

'Katara! The comet's in less than a month!'

'I know. We'll be back well before it, I swear.'

'I…' The Water Tribe boy scratches the back of his head. 'What… What are you going to do? If you find these people?'

Katara, Aang notices, doesn't respond. Zuko does. 'Make them stop. Make them leave the refugees and locals in peace.'

'Katara,' Aang begs.

'You don't understand!' she tells him sharply. 'It's because of us these crimes started up again. The syndicates were all too paranoid about the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady dispensing justice to prey on people. These are vulnerable people, Aang, they need us. If we can spook the syndicate in Hamaku, word will spread. The people of the Earth Kingdom will be safe at least until the comet.'

Aang shakes his head slowly, Monk Gyasto's lessons swirling through his head. 'It sounds like revenge,' he tells her honestly.

For a moment, he swears she's going to firebend. 'It's _justice_ ,' she snarls, turning on him with a look like a saber tooth moose lion. 'I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me.'

* * *

 **Toph's Two Cents**

'Sugar Queen.'

'Don't start Toph.'

'Hahn Wong Lon,' the earthbender says in a voice like stone. 'Leader of the Wong Lon Chi.'

Katara drops the dress she's stuffing into her pack. 'What?'

'That's who you'll want to find. In Hamaku.'

Toph's arms are folded over her chest, her feet widely planted, but something black as the night coils in her words. 'Wh… How do you know that?'

'Your family doesn't become one of the wealthiest in the country in wartime without cutting a shady deal or two, princess. Trust me.' She's frowning, her lips tight. 'My dad.'

'Your dad… knows the leader of a criminal organisation?'

'Served in the military together. They purchased vineyards all over the Earth Kingdom before Wong Lon discovered there's more money in crime and corruption.' The younger girl's cloudy eyes somehow find Katara's. She's never felt unseen by Toph, not ever. But just now, the earthbender's sight feels as sharp as an eagle-hawk. 'Selling girls, collecting Fire Nation bounties on refugees? That's exactly his sort of thing.'

Sickness, tight and gurgling, churns Katara's stomach. 'Hahn Wong Lon?' she asks with a snarl.

Toph nods, grinning wickedly. 'Hahn Wong Lon.'


	59. Chapter 59

**Hamaku of the Hamakuki Province I**

Appa flies into the Hamakuki Valley shrouded in an unseasonable fog. It rolls in low and from the west. Unusual, since the region ordinarily can set their calendar by a southern autumnal fog. Waterbenders play havoc with the weather.

It's late. They hear the eleven o'clock city bell toll across the valley, even through the mist curling at Katara's touch. Night-time greys dressed all in her paints— it suits her mood nicely.

Zuko wants to set up camp first, secret Appa in the grove they spot from the air, but impatience tugs at Katara with fingers filed to points.

'We've been away long enough,' she implores, the city sprawling enticingly just over the hilltop at their backs.

In the air, it had glowed at her in welcome.

 _Come_ , it whispered. _Here, there are answers_.

Answers and _people_. People who need her to line up their crimes, hand out their punishment.

And Katara never turns her back on people who need her.

* * *

 **Hamaku of the Hamakuki Province II**

One mugging, a lost child returned home, an act of violence prevented. No gangsters. Not a whisper of them. No Hahn Wong Lon or the Wong Lon Chi.

Katara's temper is simmering.

It's the next alleyway they slink down she decides that they need a more proactive plan than _sneak and hope_.

The Blue Spirit is close by her shoulder when she turns to him. 'We need a plan.'

'We have a plan,' his muffled voice reminds her.

They got good at tracking people down in Ba Sing Se, but an organised group? That's another can of eel-worms altogether. 'We're not going to find a criminal organisation by skipping around the Night Quarter,' she snaps.

But Katara may just eat her words.

As she speaks them, a group of three men— broad, scarred, mean, with matching midnight arm bands on their biceps— round the corner. There's a suspended moment where the men eye crimson swirls and blue grimaces before a wicked smile crawls up the cheeks of the closest of the three. It's a smile like cut glass.

A ceramic knife appears in his hand. 'Uh uh,' he sings in a dangerous tone. 'Not here, not in my city.'

Katara returns his smile, wide as her painted swirls. 'My friend and I are looking for someone actually. Perhaps you can help us find him.'

The man with the knife snarls.

The man with the knife lunges.

* * *

 **Blood or Paint**

Katara washes the paint from her cheeks, her chin, her shoulders, while the Blue Spirit keeps watch. They're barely half a mile from their camp and with spilled blood behind them, they're cautious, careful to cover their way forward.

'We'll go down tomorrow morning.' She's thinking aloud, scrubbing roughly at the side of her neck. 'Scope out the house in daylight. We should try to find a way in other than the front—'

A cloth— Zuko's black zukin— wipes gently at the streaks bleeding across her shoulders, blotting the colour leaking into her sarashi. 'Blood or paint?' he asks in a voice like distant thunderclaps.

Who can say? Under the firelight in Zuko's free palm, paint, blood, water, they all look the same.

She wants it to be paint, but that sense beyond sight sings that it's blood. 'Did you get it all?' she asks instead.

The cloth at her throat trails across the bare skin over her collarbones. It's caressing, an unhurried, unconscious caress, and it's this vulnerability that jerks her away. She rubs at the tickle his touch has left behind.

'We should go.'

'Kata—'

She's already halfway out of the clearing. She feels more than halfway out of her mind.


	60. Chapter 60

**Rumour Has It IX**

The Wong Lon is unnerving at the best of times. He's downright terrifying when he's receiving threats from spirits and ladies.

' _We're coming for you_ ,' he repeats slowly. 'Where?'

The woman— Tumi— glances at the guard by the door. 'Chu?'

Chu snaps a salute at Wong Lon. 'In the Night Quarter. On your, er, father's statue in the square, sir.'

Wong Lon's hands, great meaty things adorned with silver rings, clench. 'My father's statue.'

'In red paint or blood, we're not sure yet,' Meng Wong Lon mutters to his left. Her claw-fingers drumming an impatient rhythm against the arm of her chair.

He uncurls his fist to press the talons still. 'One of ours was killed in the Night Quarter last night,' he says in a tone of brittle calm to the nervous woman before him.

She bows shakily. 'Yes, sir. Your eldest cousin's son.'

'Who would dare?'

She winces at the knife's edge in the words. 'Um…'

He stands then, lifting her bodily from the ground. ' _Who_ , Tumi? Who dares assault the men of the Wong Lon Chi?'

It's Meng Wong Lon who replies. 'Rumour has it the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady are in town,' she says in silken tones.

Tumi gurgles against Wong Lon's grip on her throat. 'Yes,' she wheezes. 'It was them.'

He drops the woman with a snarl. 'Find them,' he snaps. 'I don't care how just _find_ them and bring them to me!'

In his mind's eye, the words _We're coming for you_ shine brightly across his father's statue.

* * *

 **Chu I**

They come for Chu first, on the information of a dead man.

He's on the first stair of his apartment building— dinner for four in a series of take-out boxes at his side— when a river runs around his ankles. It freezes him in place. He sees the sword at his throat first, then the man in the mask. Behind him, lurks a crimson lady.

'Bo Chu?' the Painted Lady asks in a voice like corpses tangled in river weed.

He tries to stay calm, tries to keep his head— _don't panic!_ Is all he can think.

'My friend and I are looking for your boss,' the woman masquerading as the river spirit continues.

He swears, curses her to the darkest realms of the spirit world; the sword pushes a hair's width into his neck. 'Wrong answer, Chu,' she says in a falsely sweet voice. 'I'll ask one more time nicely. You won't enjoy how I'll ask after that.'

 _This one is new to her business_ , he realises with relief. The threat is weak, awkward. She's young, too, probably doesn't have the stomach for violence.

'If I ever catch you in a fair fight,' he snarls, letting the most lurid of his crimes show in his grin. 'I'll take that pretty mouth, empty it of all it's teeth and give you _something_ but trust me, little girl, it won't be my boss. And it definitely won't be nice. Not for you at least—'

He gargles on the last word, chokes on his own threat.

The ice has melted but he can't move. Burning fishhooks have taken hold of his flesh and the marrow of his bone and forced him up against the wall.

* * *

 **Chu II**

At first, Zuko thinks the man's clothes must be damp. That's how she's bending his own hands around his throat, forcing him up against the wall while the ice at his feet shivers in a puddle on the ground. He doesn't feel anything but disgust for the gangster. The man's words stink of experience, of crimes he's carried out enough times that the retelling no longer stumbles on guilt.

At first, Zuko thinks it's water she's bending.

He is wrong.

The Painted Lady is using a form he's seen once before. Her fingers are twitching and spidery, drawing up sharply then down in a hurry. Gone are the smooth flowing movements he's used to seeing from the waterbender.

There is spit flying from Chu's lips. Gurgles like the breaths of a dying man dribble down his chest. Zuko nudges Katara hesitantly.

She loosens the hold she has on the man's blood and his hands fall from his neck. 'Hahn Wong Lon, Chu,' she snaps, jerking her left hand upwards. The gasping man's head snaps back against the wall, his red throat exposed. 'Where is he?!'

* * *

 **Chu III**

He tells them the truth in the end: he doesn't know where Wong Lon's actual residence is, or any of his lieutenants. Even if he did, he says, he's better off dead at her hands than his boss's if the man finds out he'd told them anything. Instead, he gives them the address of Wong Lon's lacky, a woman by the name of Tumi.

'She's the only higher up whose address I know,' Chu pants, struggling against his invisible bonds. 'I swear.'

The Painted Lady doesn't move, doesn't release her stranglehold, barely blinks the ice from her eyes. 'Have you been hurting people on Wong Lon's orders, Chu?' she asks in a tone promising nothing less than destruction. 'Because I think you have.'

'N—No.'

'You're lying, Chu.'

'Back the fuck up!'

'Do you hit people? Beat them?' Her glacier gaze hardens into flames. 'Or is it like you said before? You _give_ them something… else?'

Zuko stands back and lets it happen. When the man drops to the ground crying, he takes the waterbender's arm and forces her from the hallway.


	61. Chapter 61

**Demons Live Here I**

'Katara…'

'Can you pass the ginger?'

He doesn't. He doesn't move.

She turns to him bursting with brittleness and anger. 'No, okay? I don't want to talk about it.' Zuko takes her by the shoulders, hard enough to bruise when she tries to twist away. 'I said I didn't want to—'

The embrace is sudden. He's crushing her ribs against his own, hard enough to feel her breath _whoosh!_ out and warm his neck. She's shaking more than he is, but the tighter he grips, the more their two tremors feel like one.

He doesn't have any words that aren't a lie, he doesn't have the words she needs to hear. He'll ask her about it later, get the details when she's not sobbing into the front of his shirt. When he can think, he'll find them, the words. He'll find the right ones to let her know she's not the monster she fears, that monsters don't feel regret, don't vomit afterwards and _still_ keep it together to cook dinner for a friend.

He doesn't know how to say it now.

But he holds her until the tempest eases into shaky breaths instead of a hurricane.

* * *

 **Demons Live Here II**

'It's been on my mind a lot. Since… Since Hama.'

'You haven't... you haven't said anything.'

'I know.'

'Is that why you've been…?'

'What?'

'Not… yourself.'

'Why I haven't been kissing you?'

'No—'

'It's not about you, Zuko.'

'I know! I didn't say it was.'

'I know, I know, Sorry. I shouldn't— I didn't…'

'It's fine.'

'I don't know what to say. I don't understand what's happening to me.'

'Come here.' A moment of shuffling, a sniffle from the waterbender. 'There's nothing wrong with you.'

'You saw what I did!'

'So? I've had to kill people, you've seen me do it. I don't _like_ it. But sometimes—'

'Don't! Don't tell me _sometimes it's necessary_!'

'Sometimes it is. Sometimes for us to help people— the refugees, the families without sons and fathers to protect them— the bad people have to go.'

'Like that? They way I did it? Zuko, I reached inside of him and _broke_ him.'

'How is it different to me using my dao swords to do it? Dead is dead.'

'It's— It's just…' _Oh._ 'It's not.'

'You're not a monster, Katara. You're just a kid in a world where monsters exist, like the Wong Lon Chi or the Dai Li or my fath—'

* * *

 **Demons Live Here III**

She's still tucked under his arm so when he tries to pull away she clings tighter. 'Zuko—'

Ozai's worse than a monster, worse than the Wong Lon Chi or the Dai Li. He's a tyrant carrying on a century of violence on a global scale for the sick pleasure of it. As well as a father withholding love for his child.

'I'm sorry,' she says instead, says it tenderly, says it like the first snows of the season resting gently atop the earth. Says it with a softness she hasn't felt since Hama and her legacy. 'I'm sorry he's like that, Zuko.'

The firebender's hair is hiding his face from her but Katara doesn't need to read its expression to know not to let go. To wait the long minutes before he slumps back down, wrapping his arms around her. She eases him back until they lie in the grass beside Appa, the whole wide night sky stretching above them.

She turns her face into his chest and leaves bloodbending and fathers to the morning.

* * *

 **The Dark Side of Grace**

Sokka and Toph will always say that Katara's change began during her trip to the Earth Kingdom with Zuko a few weeks before Sozin's Comet arrives. She was more… reserved when she returned. She still laughed and played with her friends, but something was definitely… off. They never said anything, the differences were too minute, easily laughed off, but looking back, they knew.

Aang would date it from before he woke from his coma, but the Avatar's bias on the matter is clear.

Katara knew though. She knew it was Hama.

Hama gave her a terrible gift. Hama forced Katara to look within herself and see she's not as shiny bright as she'd always thought. There are stains on the tender plains of her soul. There are things she is capable of in service of others that she would once have sworn she'd never do.

Her trip with Zuko didn't colour the stains brighter. The Firelord's son merely shook out the tapestry to show her their shape is merely another thread of her soul's pattern. He's there while she comes to terms with the discovery.

He holds her through the tears.

* * *

 **As many of you have vocalised in the comments: Katara is in struggle street. Maybe you can relate? I know I certainly can. I may never have bent anyone's blood, but I think everyone has felt shame around something they think they shouldn't be/do. Irishleesh93 made a great point that myself and a lot of other fic writers have strived to explore** **—** **this is the side of Katara that would destroy Aang. She is a mirror of her element: smooth and soothing and life giving, but also volatile, dangerous, untamable. I think it's laughable to think she would be content to fade into the background as wifey. Not because there's something wrong with that, being a wife and mother is an incredibly fulfilling role and one undervalued in our society, but it's not the whole of the path I would have guessed at for Katara's character. Maybe pre-finding-the-boy-in-the-iceberg-Katara. But our girl's travelled the world, she's _seen_ things...**

 **Some of you have expressed concern about the dark turn of the story… and yeah, I didn't expect it to go here either. But here we are. I'm upping the rating and I'm going to ask you to stick with it! If something you read makes you feel uncomfortable, pause. Take a deep breath, and ask yourself this: What is it about what I just read that makes me feel unsettled? Do yourself the favour of being _really_ honest here.**

 **I once read a book where I was _hating_ on the Strong Female lead. Like properly hating her, which, as a feminist, was a deeply unsettling realisation for me. I was hating on this character for being outspoken** **—** **what the actual? After some reflection, I figured out that what I was hating on was the part of that character that I've never been able to have myself: the ability to not only deal with conflict, but to thrive in those situations. You can learn a lot about yourself if you reflect on your reactions, to fiction especially ;)**


	62. Chapter 62

**Tumi**

Tumi has only been in Hamaku for a few months at the beckoning of the Wong Lon himself. She's from the south, originally; Gaoling. She used to head up the syndicate's branch there, but the boss called her north, and so north she came. In her home city, the Blue Spirit and Painted Lady wouldn't have been able to take her by surprise the way they do.

Still, she puts up a fight. Despite the fear coursing through her, she still manages to land a crushing blow to the Blue Spirit's chest. She hits him with a boulder big enough to bruise something vital. A cracked rib at least, she thinks.

What she doesn't count on is the way the Painted Lady draws herself upwards like a towering tsunami. The crimson of the Lady's paint gleams blood-like before Tumi finds herself contorted and backed up against the alley wall.

'Hahn Wong Lon,' the girl snarls as pain like pin pricks rains down along Tumi's veins. 'Start talking!'

* * *

 **The Applications of Waterbending I**

Zuko's never been good at talking. That's something else Azula excels at that he's never quite mastered. Sure, he can order men around, shout his frustrations to the sky, but the nuance of another's emotions? No, that's never been something he's comfortable traversing with words.

But the waterbender is.

So he tries. For her.

'Um…'

'Hold still.' Katara's bowing over the pain in his torso, her hem stained with the late-night dew of the grove's grass. That earthbender hit him hard while he was distracted; his ear tips turn pink beneath his hair at the embarrassment. His distraction is rolling his shirt up, squinting at his stomach. 'Ouch. That's got to hurt.'

Something in him swells and he gives a pained shrug. 'It's not so bad.'

'I'm sure,' comes the sarcastic reply.

He sucks in a breath when she calls water to her hands and their glow illuminates his skin, her drawn expression. 'Um, good job. Tonight, and last night, I mean.'

Her frown lines deepen; is it the wrong thing to say? 'I'm glad _you_ think so,' she says in a deflated tone.

'I do.' He glances at her hands, soothing the breaks and tears that brought him to his knees while they carried another name, another location, from the city. 'Knowing you has given me a lot of respect for waterbending, I never knew it was so powerful.'

The blue light around her hands flickers and fades to darkness. _That_ gets her attention.

* * *

 **The Applications of Waterbending II**

'In the Fire Nation, we only ever learn about the achievements of firebenders, nothing about the other elements. I was always told that waterbenders were weak, that they rarely won against our navy and our benders… just another one of my father's lies.'

Katara's lips part in surprise but she snaps them shut and focuses on the twisted energy beneath her hands. Silently, she hates Ozai even more.

'Your bloodbending…' He says the words softly, whispers them. She won't look at him. 'You might not have always known about it, but it's part of you. Hama… she used it with dishonour, used it to hurt people but you're using it to help. It's not the monstrosity you think it is.'

She nods, the barest tilt of her head.

'Can you… Can you try it? On me?'

That gets a response. She splutters, tries to draw away, but the firebender captures her hand. 'You can't be serious!'

'I am. Try it.'

Her head shakes of its own accord. 'I could hurt you.'

'I trust you to figure it out.'

He is certain as stone, his pulse steady, unhurried. She should know; she can feel it beat like the pulse of a furnace. And she finds she can't refuse, doesn't want to.

'Stay still,' she whispers. She can't help herself, the lure of his blood is like no other. She wants to swim in it, drown in it. Play in it like a child in the rain.

Gently, she crooks her fingers and he sits up, his skin inches from hers. 'What does it feel like?' she wonders.

He frowns, staring down at his body. 'Warm. Like there are a hundred fingers plucking at me.'

'It doesn't hurt?'

Zuko stares her dead in the eye. 'No. You should try healing with it.'

For the second time since they slid into camp, she's shocked by him. 'It's _blood_ bending, Zuko, it's evil!' She releases her hold on him; _what is she doing?_

* * *

 **The Applications of Waterbending III**

'I shouldn't be playing around with it.'

'If you can heal people with a handful of water on the surface of their wounds, imagine what you could do if you used the blood in their veins.' He tries to catch her eye but she's busy studying her hands. ' _You're_ the one telling yourself bloodbending is evil. All I see is someone exploring the wholeness of her bending.'

She thinks of Gran Gran then, of new mothers in lean years clutching their babies to their chests and calling the old woman _angakoks_ ; cunning woman. They always brought the infants to Kanna in those winters where the whole village's cheeks hollowed with hunger. With eyes of steel, Katara's grandmother took the babies and went out onto the tundra with a ceremonial rattle and a bone knife.

Each time she returned alone.

When Katara discovered the tradition, that the youngest of the tribe were the first to die when their stores couldn't last the winter, she raged. She screamed, she beat at the calm old woman with her tiny child's fists.

Kanna held her child-sized fury and whispered the words of their people. 'Our lives here are hard, my little polar bear. Some years, we struggle just to survive. With harsh times come harsh decisions.'

'But _how?_ ' she had sobbed into the old woman's shoulder. 'How can you do it, Gran Gran?'

'Because I am _angakoks_ ,' Kanna says the way another might comment on the tide. 'It is my responsibility. My power.'

In an Earth Kingdom grove, with a firebender at her side, Katara studies her hands with glassy eyes. 'My power,' she whispers to herself. 'My responsibility.'

* * *

 **RHI trivia #17: My Water Tribe world building is essentially cherry picking from North American and some Australian indigenous traditions. It's a well-known practice of past-Inuits, the infanticide. What a lot of people don't know, is that most nomadic cultures practiced some form of this prior to industrialisation. In AtLA, that means the Air Nomads may well have done so, too.**

 **Fun fact. Those of you who read my last fic, _Mending Wounds_ , may have noticed the similarities between Kanna's cunning woman and the swampbender's Clever Woman (a term borrowed from a great Aussie show called _CleverMan_ which I _highly_ recommend btw). This is no coincidence (I think my meta's are crossing stories now). At some point the swamp waterbenders and the waterbenders who live at the Poles would have had contact, perhaps even shared cultural roots.**


	63. Chapter 63

**The Crystal Fist**

Meng Wong Lon is Hahn Wong Lon's cousin, his trusted second, and— rumour has it— his late-night companion during the hours after the midnight bell. Few know her birth name, for it's her Wong Lon Chi title that she goes by these days: The Crystal Fist.

Born the bastard child of an earth and firebender, she clawed her way to the top with sheer hard work, pain, and determination. And now? Meng Wong Lon is a glassbender.

Like a spider, she has woven herself a home that acts as a trap. A woman of Meng's position does not reach the Wong Lon's right hand without making enough enemies to be worthy of a little paranoia. Her residence, a villa by the harbour, is all earthen walls and brittle glass windows; clay pots adorn every alcove. She's killed a dozen assassins that way.

The stains of their blood still linger in the pottery and the windows long after their repair.

* * *

 **The Villa by the Harbour I**

Water seeps and fire creeps but no amount of stealth hides the Blue Spirit and the Painted Lady from the Crystal Fist. She feels their presence as soon as she enters the villa's living room.

Warm night air flutters against the pale curtains. 'I wondered if your path would bring you to me,' Meng Wong Lon says to the shadows across the room. 'I knew it would only be a matter of time.'

From the darkness by the hardwood bookshelves, a spirit and a lady step forth. There is water trickling up the Lady's raised arms in rivulets and a look in her eyes that Meng Wong Lon is familiar with. She's seen it in mothers protecting their children, or husbands protecting their wives. She's seen it in killers before the knife strikes home.

Meng Wong Lon can't see the eye's behind the Blue Spirit's mask, but the Painted Lady's eyes tell a story: she is prepared to do _whatever_ is necessary to get what she wants.

* * *

 **The Villa by the Harbour II**

'I would ask you what you want, but I believe I already know,' Meng Wong Lon says in a tone cardboard bland. 'Chu's widow sent me a warning when Tumi's children found her body.'

The words fall like the lash of hot fire but Katara bears their weight, their heat. _If I have to burn for my crimes in the name of the people of the Earth Kingdom, so be it_. 'Where is Hahn Wong Lon?' she snarls in the river sand voice of the Painted Lady.

'That accent…' The dark-haired woman tucks her hands into her kimono sleeves; there's the _shick!_ of a knife. 'You're not Earth Kingdom, are you?'

'Hahn Wong Lon. Tell us where he is and we won't hurt you.'

Preoccupied with the knife in front of her, Katara doesn't expect the attack from behind.

The window shattering is her only warning. Glass slices through her dress, her skin, down deep to the bone. As she falls to the ground, some distant part of her is grim humour and dark rain: she didn't know she could feel her own blood with her bending, even as it courses in rivers down her hip, her thighs.

* * *

 **You. Guys. Are. _KILLING_ it in the reviews and comments. Expanding on the Water Tribe back story with some beautiful insights (so much so I had to run to tumblr to shout about how wonderful you all are)! Featherstrike, you properly made me sit up and yell "YES" at my laptop with: "Aang could have never accepted this side of Katara. As much as bloodbending can also be used for healing and other-let's say-"good" purposes, he never would have understood that Katara sometimes /needs/ and /wants/ to use it in order to protect those in need." Beautiful, y'all. Keep it coming! All your comments have been so so SO good!**


	64. Chapter 64

**The Villa by the Harbour III**

She wants to kiss Zuko, wants to sooth away the light in his eyes that's too full of fear, too terrified to make sense. He's not making sense.

'…tara? I've got water here.'

Water's nice, but so are kisses, she tries to tell him.

'Can you hear me? Katara? Katara! Fuck! _Fuck_ that's a lot of blood…'

The expletives taste wonderful in the rasp of his voice, taste like a breathless moment in the grass beneath that Shu Jing pine with her firebender's element in her veins.

Something tugs against her side and pain sharpens her world with the suddenness of a knife.

'Ow,' she gasps, her head spinning into the destroyed villa living room.

'Don't try to sit up.' There are hands pressing pain into her side. 'Can you bend? You need to close this wound before you lose any more blood.'

'Zuko?'

The fear in his eyes scares her worse than the fragility in her limbs. She can't remember the last time the firebender was scared. 'I'm here. There's a bowl of water beside you, can you bend it?'

'I…' There are starbursts teasing the edges of her vision. 'Yes.'

It's never been this hard, calling to her element. The water in the bowl sloshes and it spills but enough of it coats her shaking hands. She hopes it's enough.

'I'm going to release pressure on your wound on the count of three.' She learned about healing in the North Pole. Something about keeping pressure on serious wounds…

'Are you ready?'

Her head swims. 'Is it— Is it bad?'

Zuko grits his teeth and shakes his head. 'No. No, no, it's fine. You just need to stop the bleeding, okay?'

The starbursts are getting closer. 'Okay.'

'Okay.' The hands against her side are shaking. 'Three. Two.' The water around her hand is trembling. ' _One_.'

He pulls back and blood trickles from her side. Her head spins. She grits her teeth; the water on her hand begins to glow a murky purple-blue. It hurts, this healing. She hisses breathes in and out through clenched teeth and squeezes her eyes shut so the room stops dancing.

She feels the bleeding stop, the veins knitting themselves back together. Her hand falls from her side to splash against the ground.

'Done,' she wheezes, willing her heart to slow its cascade against her chest.

'How do you feel? Can you stand?' A hand brushes against her forehead. 'You're still really pale…'

Standing feels a little ambitious. 'Where's Meng?'

Zuko's voice darkens and though she's never met the Firelord, she thinks she sees his heritage in the firebender's scowl. 'Dead.'

'What?' Katara tries to raise her head, look around the destroyed room, but Zuko presses her back to the floor.

'Don't move, not yet. Rest.'

'You killed her?' A chill and the memory of Tumi's frightened expression wrap themselves around her spine. 'Did she talk? Did she tell you where Wong Lon lives?'

But Zuko's face is thunder clouds and fire storms. 'No. After she…' He's glaring at the floor between them. 'When you went down, I just… there wasn't a chance to talk.'

 _When you fell I was terrified. You were bleeding and Hahn Wong Lon and the Wong Lon Chi were the last thing on my mind. I thought she'd killed you_.

She hears them. The words he doesn't say.

With tears gathering close in her eyes, she finds his hand and squeezes it.

Across the room, a dao sword is half way buried in the Crystal Fist's neck.

* * *

 **The Villa by the Harbour IV**

In the hours before dawn, while a waterbender sleeps, the Blue Spirit keeps watch over her and the villa. He steals like shadows through the rooms of Meng Wong Lon's house for clues, for something— anything— that points to the leader of the Wong Lon Chi.

The house is minimalist, immaculate except for the destroyed living room. There are hallways and stairwells of thick, cool earth. The scent of jasmine and paprika in the kitchen, and an organised clutter across the desk in the study. Here, he spends well over an hour reading through journals and correspondence. There are whispers of Meng's cousin, hints of him between the pages of letters but none of the voices behind the words give any hint of a location.

Which is when Zuko finds the invitation to the local vineyard.

* * *

 **Some Wounds We Cannot Heal Ourselves I**

Zuko wakes Katara several hours before dawn. She's groggy and stiff; something burns in her back as she sits.

'Ouch…' She tries to reach behind her but the sharp pain between her shoulder blades halts her. There's something there, something festering to the left of her spine.

The firebender's fingers are gentle. 'A piece of glass,' he explains. 'It's not large or deep, but you should heal it before we leave.'

She reaches for it again, over her shoulder this time. ' _Ah!_ ' She swears low, under her breath, with words she learned from Sokka and Bato. Her head swims 'I can't. I can't reach it.'

'Okay.' He draws a slow breath. 'Okay, I'm going to take it out.'

'Thank you.'

Zuko settles behind her. His fingers brush her skin with the softness of feathers. 'Um, the wound is… you're going to have to take off your sarashi so I can bandage and wrap it.'

It blooms hot, the colour in her cheeks. 'Right. Okay.'

'If you, er, just face forward? I won't— I won't look or anything.'

'No, no. Just let me, um…' Forgetting her glass wound, she tries to lift her blood-stained dress overhead. ' _Ah!_ ' Her arms drop like deadwood. 'Ah! No. No you'll have to cut it away.'

'Cut it?'

'The dress. I've got thread in Appa's saddle. I'll fix it later.'

Behind her, a knife slides out with a quick _shick!_ 'Thread,' the voice by her ear says resolutely. 'Right.'

* * *

 **Things that are true: The readers of this story are all 100% the best dudes on the internet.**

 **Things that are untrue: Author's are annoyed by long reviews.**

 **^ For reals. Give me essays and I will sit there with my cup of tea reading them, wide-eyed with delicious external validation. There is no such thing as "leaving too many" or "spamming" me with reviews. Especially you regular reviewers! I _see_ you! And I love you all! Double chapter upload because it's 6:30am and I woke up to all your lovely comments!**


	65. Chapter 65

**Some Wounds We Cannot Heal Ourselves II**

The Painted Lady's dress is a ripple around her hips. Dark crimson stains her skin where the worst of Meng's attack hit her side. The pre-dawn air sends goosepimples down her arms and back. Zuko's fingers are at her side, unwinding the bands of her sarashi.

'I'm going to cut the rest of this away.' Zuko's voice startles her, loud in the silence that's fallen over the villa.

'What? Oh, okay.'

'It's caught on the glass so it might hurt.'

'Do it quick.'

The pain is spectacular, a starburst of agony down her spine.

His hand traces the pain down and away. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's off.'

The severed sarashi lands atop the dress at her waist.

'Hold still. I'm going to ease this out as gently as I can.'

There's a whimper somewhere behind her lips but she swallows it down. 'Alright.'

'Ready?'

'Mm hm.'

Her flesh screams but she catches it behind her teeth. The glass is grinding against every exposed nerve, every broken vein and shattered muscle; it tears at her. The moan that escapes the fingers over her mouth does little to lessen the pain.

'Nearly done,' the voice over her shoulder implores but its her jerking nod that finally pulls free of the glass.

She's woozy immediately.

* * *

 **Some Wounds We Cannot Heal Ourselves III**

'Is it okay?'

'The bleeding's stopped.'

She closes her eyes, exhausted. 'Good.'

'Lean back. I'll bandage this in place.'

Katara can feel the night air through the window on her bare chest; beside her, there's a lightning shaped shard with her blood on it. _This is not how I thought you'd first see me out of my sarashi_. 'Catch me if I faint?' she jokes weakly.

'Of course.'

He presses the bandage taut against the gauze over her wound, taut enough for her to wince. 'Can you lift your arms?'

She can, but not far. 'Is that okay?'

The hand with the roll of linen doesn't touch her side as it passes. 'Yeah.' He hesitates. 'Um…'

Katara's heart is in her mouth. She turns just enough to see the bridge of his nose. 'Do you need— You can look. If you need to.'

He opens his eyes, glancing down past her shoulder and away. 'Are you—? I'll be quick.' He is deft fingers, careful movements. Quickly, he reaches around her other side to continue wrapping.

The first band of linen sits under her breasts. The second, squarely across them.

They both pretend not to notice when skin brushes skin on the third pass.

* * *

 **Whispers in the Dark I**

'One more…'

'One more?'

'Layer. This is the last one.'

'Oh. Good.'

'Yeah.'

* * *

 **Whispers in the Dark II**

'Not too tight?'

'No. No, it's perfect. Th—Thank you. Zuko.'

'You're welcome. Um, can you stand? We should get out of here.'

'Right. Yes, I'm— I'll be fine.'

'Okay, let's go.'

* * *

 **Whispers in the Dark III**

'Zuko?'

'Yeah?'

'Um… Can we, um, forget that happened?'

'The—The bandaging?'

'Yeah. It's just… the first time a boy sees me without a shirt… and it's like _that_ …'

'Sure. Yeah, of course.'

'I didn't want the first time you see me half naked to be like that.'

'I… Oh. Um. Oh. You want me to see you— er, I mean, yes. I… Yes.'

'Yes?'

'Forgotten.'

'Okay.'

'Okay. Yep.'


	66. Chapter 66

**Rest, for Me**

Zuko wakes first, when the sun is far to the west, bathing their camp site in warm afternoon light. Firebender's might rise with the sun but, after being awake through the long hours of the night, the sun's pull is eclipsed by the moon.

The eclipse herself rolls over a moment later, groaning and blinking against the afternoon glare. 'Urg. What time is it?'

Zuko stands, turning his back to her. 'Sometime before the 6 o'clock bell toll.'

Beside him, the sky bison grunts at them. 'Hi, Appa,' she says with a voice still hushed with sleep.

'I'm going to make some food,' he says for something to say.

'I'll help.'

'No.' He pulls the fry pan from his bag, glancing at her. _Rest_. 'I've got it.'

But she is Katara. Brown hands take the wok from him. 'I'll do the prep, you start the fire.' The kiss startles him— straight up scares him. It's only a peck on the lips but his hands still remember the electricity that runs beneath the softness of her breasts. It calls to him. It strikes him dumb.

 _You have to know it would never work out, brother. Not you as Firelord, not her as your Lady._

'Where's the rice?' she asks.

'Bag,' Zuko manages, turning away and marching from the camp. 'I'll get firewood.'

* * *

 **Of Vineyards and Beifongs**

'I found this,' Zuko says to her after dinner, 'in Meng's office while you were asleep.'

The card he hands her is small, the characters on it embellished with gold paint. Beside the character for wine, there is a delicate sketch of a row of grapes under an Earth Kingdom sunset. _Vineyards_ , Toph had said. _My father and Hahn Wong Lon purchased vineyards all over the Earth Kingdom_.

'Wong Lon?' she asks him, certain he's remembering the younger girl's words too.

'You said Toph told you that he used to own them.' The firebender shrugs without looking away from the fire. 'I went through that woman's study from top to bottom and this is the only thing I found linking her to Hahn Wong Lon.'

Katara flips the card. The back reads: _Hamaku Province's finest. The mayor's Harvest Festival Feast at the Honourable Wen Mao's award-winning vineyard_. It's dated: three days' time.

'Saturday,' she says, glancing at her companion.

Zuko is already staring at her, flames and ambivalence in the gold of his eyes. 'I have a plan.'


	67. Chapter 67

**Rumour Has It X**

'What do you think Katara's doing right now?' the Avatar asks _again_ as they gather around the fire for dinner.

Sokka, homemade apron over his tunic, spoons gloop into the vegetarian's bowl. 'Here, have your meatless lady-food.'

'It's not lady-food.' Aang frowns at the slop. 'The way Katara made it was never lady-food.'

'Katara's literally a lady,' Toph calls from the boulder above them. 'How is her food anything other than lady-food?'

Sokka points a dripping goop-spoon at the blind girl. ' _Hey_. My sister is not a lady. She's a girl. A baby-sister-girl without any lady business.'

Suki drops her head into her hand, but Toph chortles from her stone. 'Your ladyless baby-sister-girl is currently on a dangerous holiday with her boyfriend, Snoozles. I bet they're not eating meat goop, or vegetarian goop either. They're probably—'

'Can you serve me up some more, Sokka?' Suki asks loudly, handing the Water Tribe boy her bowl.

Aang stirs his dinner morosely. 'When Katara gets back, I'm going to ask her to make that bean fry she made in Omashu. Remember, Sokka? It had—'

'Urg. We get it, Twinkletoes,' Toph interrupts, picking her toes. 'You miss your mum. We get it.'

'She's _not_ my mum!' Aang cries, aghast.

'She's a little bit your mum,' Sokka reasons, handing Suki her bowl back before flinging the serving spoon away to guzzle at his dinner.

'Chopsticks, Sokka,' Suki reminds him.

'Thank you, my love,' he sings through a full mouth.

Aang sighs and stares up at the waxing moon above them. He hopes she's safe. He hopes she's choosing justice and forgiveness over revenge. He hopes she'll be back soon.

* * *

 **The Vineyard I**

The elite of Hamaku are the mayor's guests at the Harvest Festival Feast. Present are lords and ladies, politicians, wealthy landowners, men of industry, ranking military men in town for the season. The vineyard is draped in lanterns. Spirit shrines guard the head of each row, and the soft sound of lutes drifts from the estate house. The milling crowd is full of the finest local wine and cuisine.

No undue notice is taken of the Southern waterbender in disguise.

She is wrapped tight in a stolen dress— some embroidered kimono of the local fashion. It fastens over her shoulder, her waist, and her hip; creamy silk with forest green edges. Her hair is pinned up off her neck in the style Toph wears. Zuko had been no help with that; she'd ended up sending him away to find shoes her size while she tugged and tucked at her stubborn curls.

And now the firebender waits in the shadows under a mask.

She is the bait, you see.

And they're fishing for the biggest catch in Hamaku.

The Vineyard II

Hahn Wong Lon she recognises immediately; his resemblance to the dead woman who came close to taking Katara's life is uncanny.

 _Let him approach you_ , Zuko's voice instructs from the depths of her memory. _Don't be too pushy_.

She let's Wong Lon catch her staring. Once. Twice. On the third time she forces a smile and hugs the dark silk shawl more snugly around her. It's far from cold but the material is hiding any blood that might seep past both her dress and bandaging.

Wong Lon is not an intimidating man at first glance. He is her height and balding more by his right temple than his left. He hasn't been without a cigar since Katara first caught sight of him fifteen minutes ago and he watches her now like a panda-jackal watches carrion.

When he makes his excuses to his cohort, Katara grips her untouched cup of wine and begins to wander closer to Zuko's hiding spot.

 _Under the trees behind the grape rows_ , she'd whispered to him as they spied on the vineyard earlier that day.

 _Get him there before you confront him_. Zuko had drawn nearer as he spoke. _He's bound to be cunning, we should take him together_.

 _I'll wait for you_. Her finger tips are tingling against the cup; the gangster is still trailing after her. _I promise_.

Hahn Wong Lon catches up to her as she reaches the party's edge. 'Good evening, my lady.' He sweeps forward in a short bow. 'Might you enjoy some company if you're to walk about the vineyard.'

 _Above all, don't let him get you alone_.

She smiles as softly as she can. 'Thank you, yes.'

* * *

 **Lol at Toph, Suki, and Sokka saying what we're probably all thinking... Was anyone else disgusted at (or at least a little weirded out by) the mother/son dynamic turned romance between canon Katara and Aang? It creeped me out big time. I've dated dudes that fit the "boyish" or "man child" trope and let me tell you... it is NOT as charming as the show makes it out to be. It's bloody tiring to have to be the adult all the time, to always be responsible for someone else's emotional processing. To never be the one who can relax and be the "fun one" because someone has to make sure bills are paid.**

 **ANYHOW. Don't let men make you their caretakers, kids.**


	68. Chapter 68

**The Vineyard III**

'Are you in attendance tonight as a guest of the mayor?' the broad-shouldered murderer on her arm asks. 'Or his wife perhaps?'

'I'm visiting my uncle, a guest of the mayor's,' she recites, grateful now that Zuko insisted on preparing a story. 'It is pure luck that I'm here on the night of the Harvest Festival.'

'Very fortunate, indeed.' His hand grips hers where is rests on his forearm. His grip is altogether too firm for her liking. 'And how do you like the city?'

 _Less than an arctic wolf's den_. 'It's beautiful, especially by night.' She wracks her brain for a location unconnected to the Painted Lady. 'I walked through the market plaza two nights ago and the lanterns were like starlight.'

Hahn Wong Lon is watching her, halfway to a smirk. 'What a pretty picture you paint, my lady.'

'And yourself?' She flexes her fingers and consoles herself over leaving her waterskins with Appa; they would have drawn too many questions when bloodbending can make quick work of her opponent. 'How do you like your city?'

Closer… just a little closer and they'll be right by Zuko's hiding spot. 'I like my city ordered, without chaos. There are… malcontents in town. But I believe the issue will soon be resolved.' He gestures to the left fork in the road, the opposite direction to where Zuko is waiting. 'Would you like to see the jetty over the lake?'

He doesn't give her a chance to respond. She is steered away from the tree line. 'Oh, I didn't mean to walk that far.' She glances over her shoulder, hoping to see a hint of blue and white among the trees. 'Just circle the rows and return to my uncle. I wouldn't want him to worry.'

'Oh, I'm sure he won't even notice you're missing. Besides, we have business to discuss, my _Lady_.'

A faint chill begins to creep down her spine.

* * *

 **The Vineyard IV**

'Do you know how many years I've lived in this city?'

Katara keeps her face relaxed, unconcerned, but not without struggle. 'I don't.'

'Twenty years. I was born in Gaoling but knew that to make my fortune I would need to _strike out_ into the world. See what she had to offer me.'

Katara is winded when Wong Lon wallops her body's chi centre with a suddenness that shocks her. _He's fast for an old man_. Stranger's hands wrench at her shoulders, hold her upright.

'I know every face in this city, Painted Lady, every lord and lady. Every beggar and whore. Everyone who comes and goes.' Wong Lon's face is blurry; she's gasping for breath and there are tears of pain in her eyes. 'No one comes into _my_ city, kills _my_ people, and gets away with it.'

The hands on her shoulders and arms are steel vices. 'You… don't know… what I'm… capable of,' she wheezes through breaths so shallow her head spins.

The old man snorts, waving his hand at her. 'Please. You've had some success in the past, but that ends here. Tell me where your friend is hiding and I promise it will be a painless death.'

She just needs to get her breath back. Once she can breathe again she'll tear all the blood from his veins. Him and his lackies, bending her arm back against the wound that softer hands had bandaged. 'He's in the Night Quarter,' she lies, panting. 'I'm supposed to take you out and meet him there.'

'You should reconsider your answer, little girl,' Wong Lon advises sharply. 'If you lie to me again, I will break your jaw.'

 _Zuko, where_ are _you?_ 'You're a coward,' she gasps. 'You'd beat up a young girl while she's held down?'

'Ah but you're no _girl_ , are you? You're a Lady.' The blow sends her head clattering back against the man holding her. 'If you didn't want adult consequences, you shouldn't have played at adult games, little girl.'

 _Kill_ , is the only thought not shaken from her head by his fist. _I'm going to kill you_.

* * *

 **The Vineyard V**

'You want t'know where the Blue Spirit is?' Words are difficult now, her jaw doesn't want to make the shapes, the sounds.

Wong Lon is wiping her blood from his hand with a navy kerchief. 'A painless death counts on it.'

Through the ache in her gut, the tears forced from her at the blow, she snarls. 'He's rescuing the girls you stole. The daughters of those villages you _slaughtered_ for girls to sell like moose-cattle. He's going to find them and he's going to free them. And then he's coming for you. The Blue Spirit is deadly. He never misses. He— _ooft!_ '

'I'm not interested in vague threats.' The words come to her fuzzy, they slip on their way through the air and into her ears. 'Though now you'll be telling me where you got your information from before I allow you the mercy of death.'

'The last thing I'd do,' she rasps, spitting blood at his feet. 'Is tell you anything. You're a monster.' She feels the fifth body arrive, his blood pounding like a racing rabaroo. 'You're a monster and you're going to die.'

The Blue Spirit cuts the men holding Katara on her feet. He cuts them like ribbons and they flutter to the ground, squalling, rivulets of red running from behind their knees. She falls with them, her head spinning with Hahn Wong Lon's blows, but not for long. She is the daughter of Hakoda and Kya, master waterbender, and the Painted Lady: she will not stay down for a man like Hahn Wong Lon.

* * *

 **The Death of Hahn Wong Lon**

When rumours spread in the next few days— rumours of a Hamaku lord and his men murdered at their own vineyard— no one links the deaths to the Blue Spirit or the Painted Lady. Hahn Wong Lon is well known by high and low born alike as the thug that he is.

His family and his syndicate mourn his passing, but his victims and their families, secretly rejoice. Better yet, the niece that takes control of the syndicate in his wake heeds the warning: she puts a stop to the sex slavery trade.

When Katara is agonising over the violence of that night— her violence, Zuko's violence— when she is overwhelmed with memories of the way Hahn Wong Lon's blood sprayed from his eyes in a terrific crimson arc, when she wakes in terror of what she now knows she is capable of, Zuko reminds her of the girls. He reminds himself, too.

It's all they can do.

Justify the horror they have wrought with the lives spared.

Spending blood for the innocent is funny that way.


	69. Chapter 69

**Undone I**

Tomorrow.

They will leave this bloody city and all its secrets for the Fire Nation and their friends in the morning. Neither Zuko or Katara are up for a prolonged flight after a night of bloodshed. They are tired. Bone-deep, blood-achingly exhausted. It weighs on Katara most of all; every night these past ten days stacking up new sins for her to carry.

She's stumbling under the burden.

Perhaps that's why she does it. She takes the Blue Spirit's arm when they walk into camp, reaches behind his head for the ribbon, to make him into Zuko again.

The mask clatters to the ground between them.

'I'm afraid,' she whispers, grateful for the cover of night that keeps her confession from the demanding morality of day. 'I'm terrified of what this war is making me into. I know what's right and what's wrong, but I can't seem to help walking on the wrong side of that line.' And then: 'I don't recognise myself anymore. I don't know who I'm becoming.'

Perhaps sanity is finally returning; every word she speaks feels like the poisons of her crimes are draining.

Words have never been Zuko's strong suit, but he tries. He traces her cheek bone with his thumbs, tries to sketch her character the way he sees her. 'You're exactly who you are, who you should be. The world isn't made up of good people and bad people, Katara. Sometimes there are good people who do bad things for the right reasons.'

The reminder. The confession. 'I've killed six people this week.'

'Who were organising the deaths and abduction of thousands.'

'That's the thing,' she whispers through the tears coursing silently down her cheeks. 'I didn't hate it. That scares me.'

* * *

 **Undone II**

His fingers at her jaw draw patterns in her tears. 'War is ugly. It gives us hard choices. You didn't have to come here, to Hamaku, but the Wong Lon Chi would have got rich on the misery of the people. People who can now go on living their lives because you chose to help them. Sometimes doing something is harder than doing nothing.' He pulls her closer, implores her with a tight grip. 'Your darkness is a part of you, Katara. It keeps you balanced. The fact that you worry about it proves your goodness.'

 _Find peace with yourself_ , says Uncle Iroh in his memories. _The world will only be peaceful when you find balance within yourself_.

He repeats these words to her, a giddy heat beating through his body. _I love her_ , he wants to tell the dead man who has always been more father than uncle.

He can't tell his uncle and he doesn't know how to tell the girl before him, but words were never his strong suit anyway.

He lets her know instead with a searing kiss. It burns him— burns them both— but not like a fistful of flames during an Agni Kai. More like the slow burn of magma sliding through veins beneath the earth's surface. With the few moments of clarity he has left, he marvels at how she matches him, the yin to his yang. She blisters him, this girl of water, scorches everything he thought he knew even as he soothes her with a touch like water.

She takes him down, not into the grass this time but into the softness of her bedroll.

 _We should stop_ , crosses some distant part of his mind, but he doesn't.

Katara is plucking his shirt overhead and the chorus of their panting plays soundtrack to their fumbling touches.


	70. Chapter 70

**Undone III**

Before the last of her clothes come free, before she loses herself in the deliciously dark fire simmering under her skin, Zuko's kiss grants Katara a moment of lucidity.

There has always been darkness in Zuko, it's what scared her into blaming him for her own back at the Western Air Temple. Better to tread those familiar accusations with the Firelord's son than admit she's always kept her demons on a leash. But there is darkness in her too— a shade this side darker than midnight— that's longed for another of her colour. And more: Someone who understands the power, the good, that lurks within the bad.

He'd always seen her darkness as nothing more than another part of what makes her fierce.

'Are you sure?' Zuko gasps the words in her ear, his bared skin pressing into every part of hers he can reach.

'Look at me,' she breathes.

He finds her eyes in the gloom of the grove and she feels love embroidered into the skin connecting them.

His hand is gentle now, tangled as it is in her hair. 'Relax,' he whispers against her lips. 'And tell me what you like.'

'You,' is all she can think to reply to such a request. Slowly, he presses forward and draws a groan from her. 'You, Zuko.'

* * *

 **The Sucker Punch**

Afterwards, while they lay tangled in blankets and each other, Zuko spills his sister's words. He can't keep them from her; not now. Not with her heart resting in his hands, and his buried beneath her skin.

In the trees, an owl-raven hoots low and long. 'I don't know what this can be, after the war.'

They're lying on their sides, facing one another; her breath tickles against his lips 'What do you mean?'

He cups her cheek, drawing in a sharp breath. 'If we win, if we take my father off the throne and I take his place… My life won't be my own anymore. Firelord's don't have the luxury of choosing their girlfriends.'

'But…' She frowns here; he curses himself silently for denting her smiles. 'Your father chose your mother, right?'

'My grandfather chose my mother for my father,' he mutters, tracing the skin down her neck and shoulders. 'Marriage is duty to the Firelord. The council and politicians would have to agree on a… suitable candidate. For marriage. And soon.' He sighs. 'They'll want it to be immediately after the coronation.'

'What… What are you saying?'

It hurts, that look in her eyes. The lost one, the one that leaks sadness. 'I'm saying I want to promise you something but it's not in my power to do so.'

She draws nearer, her skin warming his. 'You're not allowed to marry for love?'

 _Never in a million years of comets and eclipses would our people accept a waterbender on the throne_.

Katara's words hang heavily between them. 'My people have traditions, expectations. If you were a Fire Nation noblewoman… maybe love would be enough.' Her eyes flash at him, even in the dark. 'But a waterbender? If you lasted a month without an assassination attempt, I would be surprised. Assuming that the Fire Sage's chose to bless the union, which they won't without the council's agreement…'

More than that, though: there would be riots in the street, even civil war in such unstable times. This, he doesn't share with her.

She sketches her fingers across his chest. 'That's… stupid.'

'What?'

'Those rules are ridiculous and out of date. It sounds like the Northern Water Tribe's arranged marriages. My Gran Gran left the Northern Tribe because of rules like that.' She side-eyes him. 'I suppose you can't run away from the throne.'

A grim smile teases at his lips. 'Not unless you want to crown Azula Firelord.'

She kisses him brazenly, her lips drawing his down. He tries to say something further but the fingers trailing down his stomach send words screeching from his mind.

Zuko decides to leave the conversation for a time when they're both clothed.

* * *

 **There's about a thousand unwritten, beautiful, intense moments I could write detailing their first time, rather than fading to black at the end of Undone III. For me, as a writer, putting into words the chemistry and tension between them would be really amazing to write but I know some people don't want super explicit smut in a fic.**

 **What do you guys think? I could write it and post it after the epilogue if you're down? That way you can choose whether or not to read it :) lemme know!**


	71. Chapter 71

**Inflight Conversations I**

'Were you scared? When you asked me to bloodbend you?'

Zuko glances ahead, at the back of the girl between the sky bison's horns. 'No,' he answers with earnest honesty. 'I'm not afraid of you.'

She doesn't turn around, so he climbs the bison's head to sit at her side.

'I'm not afraid of you, Katara.'

'I suppose if your people wouldn't accept a waterbender, a bloodbender is way out.'

Zuko denies it. There's truth in it, but he denies it.

* * *

 **Inflight Conversations II**

'That whole not allowed to choose your own girlfriend thing?' He holds his breath when she pauses, frowns into the empty sky around them. 'That's the first thing you should change after you declare the war over.'

'I'd like to,' he replies carefully, wondering how best to explain honour and centuries of tradition. How to make her understand that there are somethings his people will simply expect of him, and a foreign Firelady is not one of those things. 'If it were up to me, I would.'

'You'd be their Firelord.' Zuko hates himself for the sadness in her voice; she shouldn't need to defend him against himself. 'You can do anything.'

'My father and grandfather were the kind of Firelord's that did whatever they wanted,' he says as the weight of his family's shame washes over him for the hundredth time. 'I don't want to be like them.'

'Loving someone your people don't approve of isn't the same as what Ozai and Azulon did, Zuko.'

Part of him wishes he grew up in the South, where duty is love and the expectations of a nation don't rest upon his shoulders. 'No, but in the Fire Nation, love and marriage aren't always the same thing.'

* * *

 **Inflight Conversations III**

As Ember Island looms ahead of them, below them, he finds it in himself to say the words. The words that will take her away from him. 'We should end this.' Clear, crisp. What he couldn't do last night when she was kissing him like he was the only source of water in a desert dry as bone. 'This can't work, Katara.'

She grits her teeth, steering Appa to the windward side of the island. 'You don't know that.'

 _I do_ , he thinks grimly and a premonition decides on this moment to steal his attention: _Misery_ , it says, _you will bring her misery and tears_.

'You don't get to decide for me,' she tells him as they land on the beach by his family's holiday house. 'You don't get to tell me how to love.'

He wants her then, wants her like a desert flower wants rain. 'Katara—'

'You're _back!_ '

The Avatar is zooming towards them, Toph, Sokka, and Suki not far behind.

Katara takes his hand. 'Trust me,' she tells him, holding his fingers and his gaze.

He caves. How can he not? 'Okay,' he agrees as Aang bounces onto Appa. 'Okay.'


	72. Chapter 72

**Ember Island I**

The cicada-hoppers are singing through the muggy heat of the day, the courtyard behind the beach house is buzzing with them.

'There's one technique you need to know before facing my father: How to redirect lightning.' Breathing deeply, Zuko traces the chi pathways between his left hand, stomach, right hand. 'If you let the energy in your own body flow, the lightning will follow it. You turn your opponent's energy against them.'

The Avatar is grinning, but he isn't happy. He's just been told he has to kill the Firelord in four days; the boy is breaking. 'That's like waterbending.'

Zuko nods his encouragement. 'Exactly. My Uncle invented this technique himself by studying waterbenders. You try.'

Aang's a natural, as with most new bending techniques. He completes the form once. 'What else? Can you teach me how to make lightning?'

'No.' He taps the boy's arms. 'Again. You have to master this.'

'Yeah, yeah. I get it. Down, up, out.'

'No.' He wants to shake the young Avatar, wants to rattle him until he starts taking this seriously. 'Lightning isn't a game! It's dangerous holding that much energy in your body. If you make the wrong move, it's over.'

Aang's nervous laugh is a cry for help. 'Not _over_ over, right? I mean there's always Katara and a little spirit water action.'

The waterbender is sitting on the steps to the house, grave as he wishes the Avatar would be. 'Actually, I used it all up after Azula shot you.'

The boy is milky white. 'Oh.'

He needs to be decisive, to have someone take charge. 'You'll have to take the Firelord's life. Before he takes yours.'

'Yeah,' Aang agrees miserably, turning for the house. 'I'll just do that.'

* * *

 **Rumour Has It XI**

Hearing his uncle's name has begun to ease with time. He can hear it now without the dark memory of his sister's lightning stinging him.

But he's unprepared to hear of the old man at the Ember Island markets.

An older woman is chatting with a friend, her husband— long-suffering— is at her side. 'Oh, some organisation, the Order of the White Lily, was is Shin?'

'The Order of the White Lotus,' Shin replies, bored.

The woman turns back to her friend gleefully. 'White Lotus! That's it! They've camped on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se! Word is they're going to try and take the city from the Firelord!'

The second woman gasps. 'No! Who the hellfire do they think they are?!'

'That's the best part!' Zuko is trying not to stare, Sokka and Katara are ahead of him, bickering over a new sword belt. 'Shin's friend, General Okuo, said there are Fire Nation traitors among their ranks!'

'Who?' the second woman and, silently, Zuko beg to know.

'Shu Jing's Master Piando! The sword master! And that's not all, Miumi!' The excitable woman leans towards her friend; Zuko is blatantly string at them now. 'They're flying the Dragon of the West's old sigil!'

Zuko could hit the old man when he complains about the tides and urges his wife to hurry up.

'General Iroh wouldn't turn on his family, would he?' the second woman exclaims.

'Strange times, Miumi! Strange times.'

 _Strange times_ , Zuko thinks, his hands shaking so hard he stuffs them into the sleeves of his robe. In his mind's eye, he can see the sigil of the Dragon of the West: a tongue of flame igniting the white petals of the lotus flower.

* * *

 **Ember Island II**

The afternoons are too hot now to spend inside. They take to meals outside, in the courtyard.

It is here that Aang refuses to kill the Firelord.

'So Zuko,' Sokka begins, rice sticking to his chin. 'What made you want to mask up and swing a dao sword in your dad's face.'

 _I felt hurt, lost, betrayed, angry, unloved_. 'At first, I was angry at him. But eventually I began to see him for the monster he is. And the worst father is the history of fathers.'

The Avatar might be sulking by the palm lilies, but he beats Sokka to the reply. 'But he's still a human being.'

Zuko's tired of being mad at the younger boy who' never known a fist of flames burning away his childhood. 'You're going to defend him?'

'No, I agree with you. Firelord Ozai is a horrible person and the world will probably be better off without him.' His eyes are hard but there are tears lurking within them. 'There's gotta be another way.'

 _If there were another way, I'm not sure he deserves it, Aang_. 'Like what?'

'I don't know!' The boy grips the back of his head, his fingers pulling at skin in the absence of hair. 'This goes against everything I learned from the monks.' He's pacing now as though Zuko's words have caged him. 'I can't just go around wiping out people I don't like!'

He wants to smack Sokka for his joke when the Avatar is clearly unravelling before them. 'Sure, you can. You're the Avatar. If it's in the name of keeping balance I'm pretty sure the universe will forgive you.'

Aang spins towards the Water Tribe boy, wind flying from his fists. 'This isn't a joke, Sokka! None of you understands the position I'm in!'

Katara tries to soothe, to bring her element to the conversation. 'Aang, we do understand. It's just—'

'What?' Aang snaps, glaring at the shocked waterbender. 'Just what, Katara?! What?'

Zuko admires her willpower; had the boy spoken to him like that… 'We're trying to help,' she says steadily.

'Then when you figure out a way for me to beat the Firelord without taking his life, I'd love to hear it!'

Katara stands, indignant, when the airbender storms off. 'Aang, don't walk away from this!'

Zuko catches her hand; _don't make yourself his punching bag_. 'Let him go,' he advises. 'He needs time to sort it out by himself.'

* * *

 **Sorry for the delay over the last four days, guys. Man and I were on a mini-holiday and we had a no-screens (almost, I was allowed to read your lovely comments) rule. It's easy to get stuck on your laptop or phone when relaxing so we made a point of reading books, playing Scrabble (you better believe I whupped his arse), and chatting. 11/10 would recommend!**


	73. Chapter 73

**Ahem. So. About that Smut tag? Not keen on smut? Maybe just skim read "Promises." Honestly, though, it's not really that explicit. Totally your choice, reader. Have at it.**

* * *

 **Ember Island III**

 _Trust me_ , she'd said atop the head of a sky bison. And he does, undeniably. It's himself he doubts.

And the tentative happiness he finds in blue-eyed smiles when the Avatar storms away from the group to soul-search ways to avoid his destiny.

Part of him doesn't want the war to end, doesn't want to be Firelord.

'He's not going to do it,' he tells the group once Aang's slammed his bedroom door.

'He will,' the waterbender across from him says.

'He _has_ to,' Suki supplies.

'Aang's just… Aang about it,' Sokka offers, polishing his charcoal sword with a flourish. 'He doesn't like the idea of getting his hands dirty. But he's the Avatar; he'll do it.'

Zuko doubts himself, but he doubts the Avatar more. 'I'm telling you, he doesn't have it in him. If he faces my father with anything other than a resolve to stop Ozai by any means necessary, Aang isn't going to walk away from that fight.'

His words have a wintery effect on the group. Suki frowns into her lap, Toph taps her fingers distractedly.

'It'll be fine,' Katara says loudly, clearing her throat. 'I believe in Aang. He knows what he needs to do. We have to trust him.'

Trust, Zuko thinks, is not enough to win a war.

* * *

 **Promises**

Later that night, when Katara sneaks into Zuko's room, they make love under the golden duvet to the tune of cicada-hoppers. It lacks translucence. It lacks a sense of permanence. They both feel it: the promises they cannot make.

After, she turns onto her side and Zuko curls around her, his heart beating against her shoulder blades. 'This feels like borrowed time,' the boy at her back whispers into the darkness of the room. 'Everything does. Sokka, Aang, Toph, Suki. It's like all of us are holding our breath until the comet and the war are over.' He swears into her hair and pushes her leg up with coarse hands. Roughly, he presses himself inside of her. Katara gasps; a quiet accolade whispered into the pillow. 'But I'm not. I don't want the comet to come or the war to end.'

Her hands grab for the pillow, the sheets, anything to anchor her against the wildfire beating between her thighs. 'W—What?'

'I don't want to give this up,' he snarls in her ear. 'Let the world burn, I don't want to leave your body let alone this beach house.'

He comes then, his thrusts deepening until he's pressed flush up against her, muscles twitching against the beat of her pulse.

It's only when she looks over her shoulder at the momentary peace in the tiredness around his eyes that she feels the wetness on her cheeks.

'Cicada-hoppers,' she says, the tears slow as glaciers.

He's dropped his forehead onto her shoulder. 'What?'

She points vaguely at the forest beyond the open window; dense palm lilies and ferns, fireflies hovering in the summer humidity. 'Back in Ba Sing Se, you said, "It's loud in summer when the cicada-hopper's sing."' She lifts his chin to press her lips and her sorrow against his own. 'Warm. Water everywhere. You said you thought I'd like it here.'

He's silent for a while. She thinks there may be tears on his cheeks too. 'Do you?' he manages to ask. 'Do you like it?'

Her gaze is soft as those rooftop nights in Ba Sing Se. 'I love it,' she tells him quietly. 'It's— I… I love it.'

Between her legs, the evidence of his earlier confession is dripping onto the bed; Katara can't find it in herself to care. She takes his hand, presses it impatiently against the dampness. 'I can't think about after,' she breathes into the dark as he curls two fingers inside of her, pinching her nipple between his lips. 'N —No comet, no after-the-war. J—Just now.' She gives up on speech to moan her appreciation, her devotion, her promise.

And it is a promise, these quiet orgasms in the darkness between midnight and dawn. A promise of now. A promise to each other, no matter what or who was to come after. A promise for…

He's snarling filthy things against her lips when she comes. She supposes they're a kind of promise too.

* * *

 **Lightly Sleeping**

Katara falls into a doze, and into sleep not long after. Zuko doesn't close his eyes, not for a long time.

He spends an hour or more preoccupied with the thickness of her hair, memorising its silkiness between his fingers. She is the moon in the sky and the cool of the forest on the hottest summer days. The comet, Aang's ambivalence about his battle with Ozai, the war's aftermath… they fade into the white noise of peace. He feels peace for once. The part of Zuko that heats in anger, that always says the wrong thing, is stunned to silence in the wake of this girl's wonder.

He makes another promise. To himself and her and the quiet of the bedroom. 'I'll find a way.' He tries the words at a whisper, then a regular volume. Feels them rumble and husk, holds the waterbender tighter when she stirs against his side.

'Good,' she sighs, turning her head into his chest.

Quieter than breathing, Zuko says the words— _those_ three little words. He whispers them into her hair.

'Tell me again,' is her reply, 'after we win.'

He makes her this promise.

A promise he cannot keep.


	74. Chapter 74

**Aang's Absence**

In the morning, the Avatar is nowhere to be found.

'I'm sure he's just gone for a walk,' Katara tells the others, rubbing her elbows. 'He was upset yesterday, he probably wanted to clear his head.'

Sokka nods, glances away, fiddles with his sword hilt. 'We can find him. Let's split up. We'll search the island.'

They do. They check the villa, the garden, the beach, the town, the forest.

Aang is gone.

And so is Momo.

Sokka makes jokes, it's what he does to relieve tension. Appa ate Momo, he declares.

But gravity hangs heavily on them all, keeps laughter from bubbling up.

Aang is missing.

The comet is in two days.

* * *

 **The Meaning of Inner Strength**

'He's not coming back.'

'Zuko!'

'He's run scared, Katara.'

She glares at him, dumps the bamboo rice steamer into the sink. 'You don't know Aang like I do! He's not like that, okay? He would never run away.'

Zuko understands duty. He understands honour. He understands that the young Avatar fled his responsibilities once before, a hundred years in the past. He understands the waterbender's hands are shaking, that she's close to tears, and though it's the Avatar who left her, he, Zuko, is not helping.

 _You must never give into despair._

The memory is potent— poverty and anger dragging him through the mud of the Earth Kingdom. In it, Iroh's eyes are soft. Y _ou must never give into despair_ , the old man says. _Allow yourself to slip down that road and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength._

Not for the first time, Zuko's chest hollows and aches with his uncle's absence.

Iroh wouldn't make Katara cry. He would help, he would hope. He would know what to do, where to turn—

Zuko starts so suddenly he knocks into the waterbender, spilling steaming rice across the kitchen floor. 'Ow! Zuko!'

He grabs her shoulders. 'Get everyone to pack their bags! I know where to go!'


	75. Chapter 75

**The Order of the White What Now?**

'The Order of the White _What_ _Now_?'

Zuko throws his rucksack and bedroll into Appa's saddle. 'The Order of the White Lotus.'

Sokka is busily stroking a beard he doesn't have. 'Uh huh, uh huh, and you want to fly all the way to Ba Sing Se— which is occupied by your crazy family, incidentally— _two days before Sozin's Comet arrives_ to meet up with a bunch of your uncle's Pai Sho friends? Aang is still missing!'

Suki hands Zuko hers and Toph's bags. 'I don't think they're just Pai Sho guys, Sokka,' she tells her boyfriend.

'They're not.' Zuko turns to the anxiously gathered group. For a moment of discord and dislocation he feels like a father with a group of lost children. _Or a rudder_ , he amends hastily. _Without the Avatar, they're a rudderless ship_. 'Look. We need help. We don't know where Aang is, but we still have to stop the airship fleet. And if he doesn't come back…'

Zuko glances at them all; Sokka, more severe than he's ever seen him, Toph, frowning thoughtfully at the ground, Suki, determined, nodding, Katara… His waterbender's eyes are gleaming.

'We have to be prepared,' she agrees, clearing the croak from her throat. 'In case Aang… in case he can't come back.'

They pack in silence after that.

As Zuko collects the last of his things from his room, he pauses by the rumbled bedsheets and allows himself to enjoy the memories of last night.

It will be a long time before he can be so carefree again.

* * *

 **Pai Sho is More than Just a Game I**

Zuko has had only one encounter with the Order of the White Lotus, in a dusty desert town. But one is enough. His uncle made sure he knew how to find them.

The tavern on the outskirts of Ba Sing Se is loud; two men brawl by the bar and there is a drunken quartet playing lewd songs by the far wall. It's rowdy and dingy but Zuko didn't bring them here for bar fights or music.

In the corner a man sits before an old Pai Sho table gleaming with linseed oil.

'Uh Zuko?' Sokka is hovering at his shoulder. Sokka does that a lot; pester him.

'What?'

'You brought us here to gamble at Pai Sho?'

 _Destiny is a funny thing, my nephew_. 'It's not a gamble.' He stops before the table, eyeing the long white moustache of the old man behind it. 'May I have this game?'

The man ignores four teenagers at Zuko's back, his eyes are misty with age but sharp. And they focus solely on Zuko's scar. 'The guest has the first move.'

* * *

 **Pai Sho is More than Just a Game II**

The lotus tile is brass plated, the flower's white paint chipping. Zuko places it in the centre of the board.

'I see you favour the white lotus gambit,' the old man intones, as Zuko hoped he would. 'Not many still cling to the ancient ways.'

 _Thank you, uncle_. 'Those who do can always find a friend.' The words taste of secrets, of mysteries he doesn't understand but maybe mysteries that will help them. Mysteries that will guide them to victory.

The old man bows, hands clasped before him as though in prayer. 'Let us play.'

The kochi berry tile. Hope rises like flames inside of Zuko. He plays the wheel of fate.

Sokka peers at the board. 'No, Zuko! Don't use the fates tile yet!'

Suki elbows the warrior. 'Shh!'

Zuko's opponent plays the winding river tile in the yin quadrant.

He counters on the board's yang side with the fire's spark tile.

Yin, serpent in the grass.

Yang, bird in flight.

Yin, North wind.

Yang, South node.

On it goes, the dance. Until the final tile completes the puzzle; the game is set.

The board is flowering full and the old man is bowing to him. 'Welcome, brother. The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets.'


	76. Chapter 76

**You guys... There are officially only five more chapters to go, including this one! They're definitely going to be much longer than the usual 300-500 words, but that means at chapter 80, we're done. I don't even know how I'm feeling about that. How are you feeling?**

* * *

 **Pai Sho is More than Just a Game III**

'We have been expecting you, Prince Zuko,' the old man tells him in the back room of the tavern. There are flowers here, _ikebana_ , but Zuko is more interested in how the man with the pale moustache knows his name.

'You know who he is?' Katara asks from his left. Her hand curls into his; her canteen uncork with a hollow pop.

The old man is unfazed. 'Crown Prince of the Fire Nation and the nephew of our Grand Lotus.'

A lump knocks the breath from Zuko's throat. 'Your information is out of date. I'm the _banished_ Crown Prince and my uncle… my uncle died in the conquest of Ba Sing Se.'

The little man withdraws his hands from his navy sleeves to clap Zuko's shoulder. 'Some secrets unfold only when the celestial bodies align,' he says sagely, kneeling in the centre of the room. At his touch, a trap door opens in the floor. 'Sozin's Comet is upon us, young prince. Will you meet your destiny?'

* * *

 **Under the Banner of the Dragon of the West**

A reunion is not what Zuko expected. Not a reunion under snapping flags bearing his uncle's sigil. Especially not a reunion between Sokka, Katara, and a bunch of old guys.

'It is respectful to bow to an old master but how about a hug for your new grandfather?' Pakku tells Katara with a broad grin.

She is teary with happiness but Zuko sees the loss in her eyes. The yearning for her family. 'That's so exciting!' she cries into the tall Northerner's robes. 'You and Gran Gran must be so happy to have found each other again.'

She is embracing the severe old man when Sokka latches on, squeezing the old waterbender tightly. 'Welcome to the family Gramp Gramp!'

Icicles return to Pakku then. 'You can still just call me Pakku,' he assures the young warrior, disentangling the boy's octopus hold.

A snort draws their attention to a cackling old man the colour of earth under lichen. 'Well well well!' he chortles, crooking a finger at the group. 'Here you all are!'

Toph crosses her arms. 'Who's this old guy?'

Katara says, 'King Bumi,' at the same time as Bumi announces, 'The greatest earthbender in the world!'

A smirk crawls up Toph's face. 'We'll see about that.'

'Later,' Piando interrupts smoothly, laying a hand on Bumi's shoulder. With a dignified bow to Zuko, the sword master straightens. 'Welcome, Prince Zuko. Your uncle will be thrilled to see you.'

* * *

 **The Place Where Irreconcilable Things Meet**

He refuses to believe it but that doesn't stop the world from glaring bright as the sun, voices squalling, shouting, jostling through the ringing in his ears. Katara is demanding answers from Piando, Toph is strong arming Bumi, Sokka is being restrained by Suki. But inside of the scarred boy, the nephew of Iroh, a storm is brewing.

No, he won't believe it. He saw Azula's strike hit home.

Time moves strangely here, in this bright shine of disbelief. It is seconds of intense detail and lost minutes of muffled voices. Here, Katara's eyes are flashing and Zuko sees every shade of the ocean in their blue. She is tempest and tide and she is interrogating Piando and Pakku in a voice that could command thousands. But time disappears again, he couldn't say where. Some place where irreconcilable things meet, like the notion of "his uncle" and "being alive."

Before long— before many more minutes have slipped by the fuzz of white noise clouding his mind— Zuko is standing before a pale pavilion fringed with maroon.

On the door is a grand lotus flower.

In his throat is the sickening beat of his heart.

* * *

 **RHI trivia #?: Y'all lambasted me for not including "major character death" in the tags and I SO wanted to tell you why… but I wanted this _Bold and the Beautiful_ drama reveal more. So I held my tongue ;) Iroh is my absolute fav. I could never kill him * ignores that in an early one-shot fic I did in fact kill him * Shame on you for doubting me!**


	77. Chapter 77

**I feel I should address the "Hold up, is my girl using contraceptives between scenes? Cause she CANNOT have a baby rn" sentiment brewing in the comments. Let's all pretend that our author (who is real life SO bad at remember her own contraceptives, let alone that of fictional characters) wrote something to the effects of "And then Katara waterbent the baby juice out and away and all was normal with her menstrual cycle" okay? It isn't a focal point of this story for me so I'm 100% neglecting to overtly address it. My bad. No babies here.**

 **P.S. To those who think Z & K are a lil too _knowledgeable_ about how to… be intimate with one another, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that. When you go through some thing transformative, paradigm shifting (aka Blue Spirit/Painted Lady shenanigans, uncovering and accepting the dark side of your soul, finding acceptance in another person) it tends to fast-track intimacy. Like, big time. They're not all of a sudden some sort of player and seductress, not at all. They're just trusting, vulnerable, and honest with each other— which does _wonders_ for your sex life.**

* * *

 **The Scars of Lightning I**

At first, Katara thinks the old man is scowling.

Then she sees the scar for what it is.

Iroh is standing straight, spine solid as the ice shelfs of her homeland, but the left side of his face is drawn downwards with the weight of lightning. The scar is delicate, like the reach of coral or a shadow of the old man's veins. It climbs upwards from the collar of his robes, over neck and jaw and cheek. Over eye. The scar is white, kissed pink.

It's stained his left eye milky white, blind.

A concussion rings in her ears, a sound like earthbenders breaking stone; it's her heartbeat, somewhere up around her throat, that's causing the racket. General Iroh who sobbed on that Ba Sing Se hillside. Iroh who drew off Azula's attack under Ba Sing Se so they could escape. Uncle Iroh, over whom Zuko had mourned the way a son grieves a father.

The weight of Zuko's grief… She didn't realise she'd carried it along with the boy to whom it belongs. But here it is, not lifting but evolving. Turning to a low buzz in her belly— her ears are still ringing. Like molasses— slow but bursting— she sets down Zuko's grief, dries those tears from her shoulder because here is the uncle they all thought lost in catacombs of crystals and earth.

When Zuko steps forward, staggers forward, the old man grabs him by the arm and the milky eye is weeping tears of joy into Zuko's hair.

'My boy,' the general smiles as his nephew's shoulder's shake. 'I am so proud of you.'

Katara's heart breaks in that moment, but instead of shattering it throbs as it grows. Through tears and a solid ache in her throat, she gathers her friends, her brother, and hugs them for all she's worth.

* * *

 **The Scars of Lightning II**

Sokka's face is soft in a way Suki hasn't seen before. It's unguarded, sketched lightly without the harder lines of sarcasm and pessimism. That's how she knows her boyfriend thinks of the Firelord's son as a brother more than a friend. It's in his expression; the twist of his lips has fallen to the dirt, the playful gleam in his eyes softened— stage lights to a candle's glow.

He doesn't make a joke about how manly men don't cry.

He doesn't drawl something pithy, something scathing.

The Water Tribe warrior is solemn watching the old man and Zuko hold each other up as joy floods them, these men of fire.

Suki's thoughts slip towards Katara, as they always do now when she thinks of Zuko. The Kyoshi Warrior wonders… She's wondered many times. She wondered when the firebender checked his temper rather than loosening it upon Aang. She wondered when the pale boy patiently withstood Sokka's endless jibes. She wonders…

Suki wonders if the waterbender knows that she is shaping the boy into a Firelord.

* * *

 **The Scars of Lightning III**

There isn't time for all their questions. The comet is tomorrow.

The comet is tomorrow.

 _The comet is tomorrow_.

'We searched everywhere,' Zuko finishes, sitting cross-legged at his uncle's side. 'Aang is gone. We don't have time to find him, but someone needs to face the Fatherlord.'

'You mean the Firelord?' Toph chimes in from across the circle.

'That's what I said!' the prince snaps. 'Uncle, please. You're the only one who can beat him.'

Iroh, returned from the grave, looks dour enough to climb into one. 'Even if I did defeat Ozai, and I don't know that I could. It will be the wrong way to end the war. History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord. And the only way for peace to be maintained is by an idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honour.'

'Unquestionable honour?' Zuko is brittle as glass, he's standing in that Hamaku villa watching the Painted Lady fall to the ground. 'But I've made so many mistakes.'

'Yes, you have,' Iroh says simply, his lightning scar creasing with his smile. 'You struggled, you suffered but you have always followed your own path, you restored your own honour. And only you can restore the honour of the Fire Nation. It has to be you, Prince Zuko.'

It slips away.

A future in which the girl under the paint wakes beside him each morning.

His country is calling.

The world needs him.

He can't look at her as he breaks their promise. 'I'll try, Uncle.'


	78. Chapter 78

**Of Comets and Airships**

There is a story, a legend in the oral tradition of the Southern Water Tribe, of Chief Sokka and the Hundred Year War. Historians find record of it— a haiku about a space sword, an autobiographical song detailing a prison break, an unintelligible ode to the moon— generations later.

The legend occupies itself with a grandiose saga around the events of Sozin's Comet and its return, namely a Water Tribe warrior, Kyoshi warrior, and master earthbender and their crusade against the airships of Phoenix King Ozai.

The tale is incredibly one-sided, and not in the way you'd think.

The Water Tribe warrior mentioned is given all the glory. How brave he was, how clever, how witty, hilarious, funny.

The Kyoshi warrior saves the bumbling oaf, the earthbender invents metalbending to ensure their campaign succeeds. But they are barely mentioned in the surviving tale hundreds of years later. This, the historians explain, is due in part to the patriarchal culture of the Southern Water Tribe at the time.

On the day, while the sky bleeds crimson and airships burn around them, Suki and Toph are the ones who stand between Sokka and death a dozen times over.

* * *

 **Of Comets and Avatars**

Aang can't do it.

Even delivered to Ozai by the whims of fate, even with his death blaring flames hotter than volcanos, even as the forests of Earth Kingdom ignite around him.

Aang can't do it.

He was raised a monk, thrust into the world and expected to be an Avatar. Too young, too soon, he's just a boy. Ozai is bearing down upon him, fists flaming with more power than any one man ought to wield, he just can't take the Firelord's life.

Aang can't.

But the Avatar can.

The Avatar has to.

It's almost too easy then. His tattoo's glow and Aang feels himself shrink inwards while the grip of a thousand lifetimes work his limbs for him. Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, Yangchen… countless years of all four elements converging in one person. He releases control, let's his Avatar spirit do what it was brought here to do.

The Avatar's hand rises, draws down sharply.

The Firelord bleeds.

The Firelord falls.

* * *

 **Of Comets and Agni Kais**

When Zuko has taken lightning for the blue-eyed waterbender and his sister is sobbing in chains, he finds himself apologising.

'Uncle is alive,' he tells her, slumps to the ground to say. His strength is fading fast, even with Katara's healing touch. He needs to sleep. He needs to rest. _A man needs his rest_ , Uncle once told him. 'I'm sorry, Azula. I'm sorry for blaming you.'

She is as cracked as the ancient ceramics that adorn the Firelord's gallery, ceramics patched with thin lines of gold filament. Azula needs patching, she needs someone to trust her, someone to ease gold into her breaks.

'Do you really think I would do that?' a moment of lucidity asks Zuko with his sister's mouth. 'Do you really believe I'm the monster that would kill her family?' Laughter bubbles from her lips, followed by flames. 'Don't lie to me, mother! You always thought I was a monster!'

'Zuko…' Soft hands are drawing him back to his feet, away from the crying girl in chains. 'You need to rest.'

But not yet. Not before the Fire Sages come to him on ashy knees, bearing a crown of flames when all Zuko wants is the waterbender's soothing touch on his aching veins. Azula could use some of water's healing potential. Once he falls to his knees, a crown pinned to his hair, he tells one of the kowtowing Fire Sages to arrange for his sister passage to the Northern Water Tribe.

 _It's for her own good_ , he tells himself as Katara helps him stumble onto the stretcher two servants bring. _It's for her own good as well as mine_.

* * *

 **Ozai Son of Azulon**

A week later, after the Fire Sages set his father's body alight, Aang comes to him.

He's in the palace gardens— _a moment of peace, please just one moment_ — he hasn't seen the Avatar since the boy arrived in the city with Ozai's body four days ago on a burned and breaking airship. His monk's robes are patched— Zuko had had his staff offer replacements but the boy steadily rejected the offering. There are stains of old crimson worn into the sash over his shoulder.

The new Firelord greets the Avatar with a nod. 'How are you doing?' he asks the boy as Aang joins him by the pond.

'Everyone keeps asking me that.' There are rattle snakes and sun sharks in his voice. Zuko wonders how this boy of air's lightness will resolve the demons hiding in his tone. ' _I_ won. _I'm_ fine.'

Zuko looks away, over the pond where turtleducks paddle. 'I can see that.'

There is a brittleness in Aang that reminds Zuko of his father just before his own weak firebending provoked the man to temper. 'I'm leaving,' the Avatar tells him, restraint wrestling with something writhing to be free. 'After the public coronation.'

'That soon?'

The boy's rattle snakes are strangling him to the tune of silence.

'You're welcome to stay as long as you—'

'Why are you being so nice to me?!' It explodes, like Meng Wong Lon's glass in Hamaku. Zuko doesn't even try to dodge the shards. 'Sending your staff to help me! Making me new robes! Stabling Appa in the palace grounds! You don't have to pretend to like me, Zuko!'

The Firelord comes to the gardens for peace, for space from the politics and complexity of his new life. He doesn't know what answer to give his council when they ask him how he expects to fix the now tumultuous naval industry, doesn't know what to say when they plead with him to choose a Fire Nation noblewoman to put an end to any whispers about his legacy, doesn't know what to say now the Avatar's boy-heart is bleeding for the innocence he killed when he struck Ozai down.

The boy has killed Zuko's father.

For all his reluctance, he has done it.

Zuko has never been more confused about a victory.

'Do you want my forgiveness?' he asks the boy, his voice just barely louder than the Avatar's laboured breathing. 'Is that what you want? I forgive you. I pushed you to do it, we all did. You didn't have a choice.'

Aang's breath comes hard. 'I killed your father,' he can't say the words, so he whispers them. 'Your _father_ , Zuko. I'll _never_ forgive myself.' And then, with disgust, 'I don't know how you can forgive me.'

But Zuko has killed before. He knows how easy it can be, how difficult. He knows well how death can bring justice. He knows how death can save lives.

'That's for you to figure out,' he tells the Avatar, crouching by the pond to hold out his hand to the approaching mother turtleduck. 'I forgave you long before you struck him down. It's up to you to figure out how to forgive yourself.'

* * *

 **swampophelia** **made a very good point in a comment a few chapters back: one of the best parts of the canon ending was Zuko and Aang's friendship. I so agree. Their similarities and differences make for a beautiful friendship, a friendship with great** **implications** **for the rest of the world. However, as we can see here, we couldn't quite get them to the hugging stage of their friendship at this time in RHI-verse. TBH, this version of Aang still has a lot of soul searching to do. The boy's character development took a backseat to the story _I_ wanted to tell (I.E. Katara's) so this Aang is still full of childish outrage at things like how "unfair" the expectations on him are etc. You'll get the barest hint of him on this journey of growing up in a later chapter, but honestly, you really need to squint to see it. This story isn't telling The Legend of Aang. We're sticking firmly to Katara, and by extension Zuko, territory. Suffice to say Aang does eventually come to the conclusions needed to bring him peace with what he had to do. After a long and lonely time. I do love that little monk-boy!**


	79. Chapter 79

**After the War I**

He'd told her. The first time his touch set her alight, he told her: _In the Fire Nation, love and marriage aren't always the same thing_.

She should have listened. Why hadn't she listened?

She'd been back home for six months when the letter arrives. Six months it had taken them— the councilmen, the governors, the Fire Sages— to find their new Firelord a _suitable_ candidate. A suitable consort. Six months for him to reject their suggestions for a girl Katara cannot bring herself to hate. Mai saved her father, afterall, back at the Boiling Rock.

 _I'm sorry_ , the ink carrying Zuko's words reads. _I'm so sorry to tell you like this. I wanted to tell you in person, but the announcement is going out soon. I didn't want you to hear it from anyone else._

'I don't want to hear it from you either,' she hisses at the bamboo parchment, a drop splashing from her cheek onto the page.

 _Marriage in the Fire Nation is about duty, not love. And this marriage will go a long way towards helping with the instability in my nation. The Fire Sages tell me that the sooner an heir is born, the sooner the loyalists will lose steam. They think things will finally begin to settle down…_

Katara supposes it's a blessing in disguise; she's too young to be married. Too young to be thinking about heirs and children and marriage. While part of her is supposing that, the other part is crying over the boy she drank tea with on Ba Sing Se rooftops.

 _I understand if you don't want to see me, but I can't end things like this. Please, Katara, please come see me. Let's talk. I don't know how to do this without you. You've always been the one with the words_.

Yes, she is.

She's the one with words.

But even she doesn't have the words to make this okay.

* * *

 **The Princess on Ice**

 _Word reaches the frozen walls of the North, the vastness of the Earth Kingdom, and the distant shores of the South: Under the comet's power, the Avatar defeated Firelord Ozai. Some say the Firelord's son killed his sister in a bloody battle for the throne. Since the princess of flames is missing, some say the spirits themselves chose the young man, scorching the Fire Princess from the Earth._

 _Some of the wilder rumours claim the Avatar himself is controlling the Fire Nation from the shadows._

 _Chief Arnook of the Northern Water Tribe receives a messenger hawk that responds to the name Hawky. It is from Master Pakku's step-grandchildren; he learns the truth this way. Firelord Ozai is dead. The young Crown Prince is crowned king._ _Azula, the letter asks Arnook, would benefit from the hospitality of the Northern Tribe._

 _'Hahn!' the chief calls to the young man standing guard by the door._

 _'Chief?'_

 _The old man glowers at his daughter's almost-husband. 'Send word to the western tundra: Prepare a Fire Cell.'_

 _'A firebender cage?' Hahn frowns. 'For who?'_

 _'A guest,' he replies distractedly, already scribbling his reply._

 _Azula of the Fire Nation will spend years in the unforgiving Northern Water Tribe cells of ice. A bender of blue fire cooling in the arctic snows._

* * *

 **After** the War **II**

Chief Hakoda's reply to Zuko's wedding invitation is brief.

 _Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. I will of course be honoured to attend the event next month. Well wishes from Chief Hakoda, my kin, and all who call the South home._

The new Firelord burns a hand print into his desk upon reading the letter.

That night, he cannot sleep. He paces his chambers, sweat beading on his skin despite the cool winter weather. He'll write to his uncle again. He should have summoned the old man the moment the Fire Sages came to him with that blasted _list_ —

Something rustles beyond the open window.

Assassins and loyalists flash through Zuko's mind. His eye twitches and he drops into a ready stance. Whoever has chosen tonight to sneak up on him is about to lose a—

Head held high, the Painted Lady steps through the sheer curtains.

* * *

 **A Brother's Love**

 _'Why didn't you tell me you broke up with Fire Face?'_

 _'I told you not to call him that.'_

 _Sokka pulls his boomerang from the holster over his shoulder. 'I'll call the sister-touching jerkbender what I damn well want! Ow! Not the face! Jeez, what's got into you?'_

 _Katara is steely eyes and broken pieces but she is also softness and compassion. 'His name is Zuko, he's one of our best friends. Don't talk about his scar like that.'_

 _'Katara… why are you crying?' He drops the boomerang to gingerly hug her with stiff elbows._

 _'Sokka, don't. I don't want_ _—_ _'_

 _'Shh, little sister. Let it happen. I do not hand out hugs lightly.'_

 _She sinks into him then, like footsteps in fresh snow._

 _'I will hand your boyfriend his ass with my sword though.'_

 _'H_ _—_ _He's not my boyfriend. N_ _—_ _Not anymore.'_

 _'… Do you want me to call Suki? She can bring you girl things, like pink cakes. Or bras. Or a hitman? Should we hire a hitman?'_

 _'No. No this is nice. You're a good brother.'_

 _'I'm a_ great _brother.'_

 _Katara tucks her head under the good brother's chin and hugs him for all she's worth. 'Sometimes, you're the best brother.'_

* * *

 **After the War III**

Were it anyone else, any other situation, Zuko would have been embarrassed by the noise he makes. Low, desperate. It hurts his throat, not that he cares. Dropping his bending stance, every nerve reaches for the waterbender as though she is bending his blood towards her. It's a nice thought, but he knows it's entirely his own burden, this wanting. This need.

'Your Majesty.' He thinks maybe she tries to make it sarcastic, a joke, but she is Katara.

She bursts into tears.

 _That_ does bend him forward. In a few strides he is across the room and she is small in the circle of his arms. Six months is a long time; the girl— whose body he'd have sworn himself an expert on— is softer, rounder, _more_.

 _Agni, I can't do this_.

'I'm sorry,' she sobs, pressing her face into his neck. 'I—I promised myself I wasn't going to cry. At least n—not this quickly.'

 _It's okay. I want to cry too. I have been crying. I don't know what to do_. 'I'm sorry.'

She inhales, her fingers trembling. 'Tui and La, I've missed your voice.'

Zuko doesn't remember deciding to, but he's slacking his thirst at her lips and he can't stop.

* * *

 **The Avatar's Balance**

 _She travels with Aang as far as the farms outside of the Fire Nation capital. It's days in the sky, it's moment's she's missed since returning to the Southern Water Tribe. There's something painfully small about her home after spending all those months with the whole expanse of the world stretched beneath her._

 _She misses days like these now._

 _Even if Aang is a little quieter. A little less joyful. A little more… Avatar than Aang._

 _'Did you stop at Kyoshi on your way to pick me up?' she asks him when they first sail into the air. Appa's groans are balm to a sore that she didn't even realise was aching. 'Did you ride the unagi again?'_

 _Aang smiles in a vague way, a spattering of mist between him and true humour. 'No. Not this time.'_

 _She considers the boy_ _—_ _young man, now_ _—_ _with his own scars, his own marks from that day of comets and fire. 'Perhaps that's for the best. You didn't fare so well last time. Imagine beating the Firelord just to be eaten by the unagi!'_

 _It's funny. But he doesn't laugh._

 _Just smiles that misting smile. 'Shall we camp on Whaletail Island tonight?' he asks the clouds beneath them._

* * *

 **After the War IV**

Afterwards, they lay entwined on the hardwood floor. There is red paint smeared across Zuko's lips, chin, fingers. Her paint is all over him. _Mine_ , a voice hisses from somewhere dark and somewhere deep.

She clutches his shoulder, tracing the smears along his neck. 'You… Your fiancée…'

'Won't care,' he says flatly. 'She doesn't expect… our marriage is a contract. It's political. That's all.'

She pulls herself up to stare down at him. ' _I_ would care. If I was her, I would care.'

His gaze melts her, like she's a candle and him, her flame. 'I would never do this with someone else if you were my fiancée.'

A lump grows in her throat. 'I should have listened,' she whispers as another tear tracks down her cheek, 'when you told me your nation wouldn't let us be together. I should have… I didn't want to believe it.'

He rubs circles, slow and gentle, into her lower back. 'I know.'

'I wanted to be mad at you, when I got your letter.' She traces the purple bruises under his eyes, sketches the character for her name in the Firelord's weariness. 'But all I felt was sad.'

He closes his eyes and she brushes a drop of salty water from where it's gathered by his temple. 'This won't make it any easier.'

Katara swivels to sit beside him. 'It can't make it any worse.'

* * *

 **You've Gotta Do What You've Gotta Do**

 _Toph is present for Lady Mai's first public introduction as the Firelord's consort. She watches, arms crossed, as her friend offers the tall woman his hand. They raise their joined fists together while Zuko recites some crap she overheard Gramps telling him about_ restoring the honour of the Fire Nation _and_ bringing together two noble houses to burn all the brighter for their country _. Blah blah, something about bringing about peace._

 _The Fire Nation people present, however, don't seem to share her disapproval._

 _Toph feels a secret pang of sympathy for the smooth faced woman whose porcelain composure reminds her uncomfortably of her own upbringing. Noblemen's daughters aren't allowed their own feelings, you see. Not discord or anger or anything as odious as opinions, wants, desire. Toph knows this. Intimately. The one time she acted on the hurried beating in her chest and kissed her handmaid's daughter_ _—_ _a peck really, innocent and confused_ _—_ _the woman and her daughter had disappeared overnight, replaced by a stern-faced governess._

 _Yeah, being a nobleman's daughter_ sucks _. Thank badgermoles she's Toph freaking Beifong._

 _Zuko's fiancée is less lucky._

 _Toph isn't sure which of them has the worse end of the bargain: the man whose clearly in love with someone else, or the nobleman's daughter whose been casting Lady Illuri longing glances all evening._

* * *

 **After the War V**

His fingers of sunlight sing her body awake again. And again. He has veins of liquid lava, steam on his breath. He takes her skin, that old casing of scars and callouses, and works her free. Works her loose until she is a shuddering, gasping nerve alive only on the heat of his fingers.

She is reborn to this body.

Her flesh is ripe as oonpeach.

Her muscles are watery soft.

He touches them with the skill of a polar wolf-bear, hunts down her pleasure with a single-minded focus.

And afterwards— while her heart still gallops, and her muscles still shake— she rolls over until he is straddled between her thighs and calls to his blood. It's heavy but fast, thundering through his veins. Here, beneath her, it is deliciously plump. Swollen. Rich.

It's a meal for her senses.

With a twitch of her fingers she brings him upright, bends him from the hips so they are flush chest-to-chest.

Zuko is inches away and scarcely less hungry. 'Let me touch you,' he growls, twitching against her restraint.

She doesn't need to grip him to guide him inside of her, but she does. Relishes his silky-smooth skin; the stretch, the _fullness_ , that drops her jaw open in a silent moan. She is syrup and her hand on his chest is all that keeps her from flowing— melting— to the floor. Her fingers weave upwards, a waterfall in reverse, cascade into his hair. The two of them are closer than the strands of a knotted fishing net. Certainly closer than the sheets, the door, the world beyond. So close her breath hitches and head empties of any and all thoughts.

She doesn't release her grip on his veins when she starts to move. Doesn't let him go until he fights his way free, snarling obscenities against her lips as he pushes her down and bends over her body. She plucks at his blood, pulls on the sensitive pathways below his stomach as he finds his own release, face buried in her neck.

It's riding the blood-song of his orgasm that finally overwhelms her. Her legs clench, her back bows and she comes with his name on her lips.

* * *

 **After the War VI**

They don't sleep, not really.

Mostly they talk. And for someone who habitually says the wrong thing, Zuko is eloquent about his work; his successes, his failures. The programs he's implemented for the returned soldiers, training and reskilling. Appointing the first woman to the Firelord's council, Xu Li. She's funny, he tells Katara through laughter, she keeps the old men in line.

'Uncle sat in on one council meeting when he was last here.' He's lying on his stomach and elbows, watching her. They're on the bed now, the silken blankets gathered around his waist. 'When he saw Xu Li talk, he tried to invite her to his tea shop… like permanently.'

Katara giggles, leaning forward and hugging a pillow to her chest. 'He _proposed_ to her?!'

Zuko smiles and Katara traces the lines of it into her memory. 'She turned to me and said, "Your Majesty, with your permission, I would like to tell your esteemed uncle: not now, not ever."'

'As if that would stop your uncle!'

'Exactly!'

Katara, too, tells him stories: her diplomatic training with her father, Sokka's fish hook incident, Aang's visit, the arrival of the Northerner benders.

'It's so different there now,' she confides sometime later, her head resting in the Firelord's lap. 'In only six months, but I barely recognise my tribe.'

'Your tribe isn't all that's different,' he says quietly. 'It's changed some but the person you were when you left is not the same one who came back. War changes people.'

She looks away then, as hollowness creeps back in. It defies words, how much she'll miss those insights, miss him. It defies words, so she reaches for his lips. 'Come here,' she whispers, pulling him down…

No, they don't sleep, not really. Mostly they talk. But Zuko has taught Katara a language of touch, a language without words. As the night begins to dwindle, she takes every kiss she can steal, every gasp she can draw from him.

* * *

 **A Wise Man Flows with the Tide**

 _'I can't do this, Uncle.'_

 _Zuko is pacing. Wrenching at his formal robes._

 _The boy is wrestling himself into a marriage that his spirit is fighting with the same passion that won him his crown._

 _It breaks Iroh's heart._

 _'The Lady Mai is an honourable woman,' he says calmly, sending the wide-eyed servants from the room with a look. 'Honourable and kind and strong. Her father is a strong supporter of many of your poli_ _—_ _'_

 _'I don't care about my policies!' He yanks the crown from his top knot, the one his servants have just spent long minutes pinning into place. 'I can't do this to her, Uncle!'_

 _He wonders if Zuko is referring to the woman waiting for him at the Fire Sage's temple, or the one who arrived yesterday with their guests from the South. 'You must find your peace with this, Zuko. Remember what we spoke about_ _—_ _'_

 _The boy gives him a look so scathing, Iroh remembers another argument, another time; bandages over the boy's burnt and banished face at the Western Air Temple…_

 _'Why did I invite her?' Zuko is muttering as he strides with the fervour of a caged moose lion. 'She shouldn't have to see this.'_

 _Iroh holds his silence. He holds his words of_ patience _and_ nothing is forever _and_ a time will come for water to soothe the wounds of fire. _He's said these things a dozen times over now. Once more will not bring the boy the peace he must find for himself._

 _'You are strong, Firelord Zuko,' he says instead. 'Stronger than you know. You will find a way to do what needs to be done.'_

 _Silently, Iroh bends and retrieves the discarded crown from where it fell with a clang. He wipes it against his robes and gestures to the cushion before the mirror. Zuko swallows. Zuko kneels. Iroh takes his time, reties his nephew's top knot, combs any bumps from it. He waits for the boy's fidgeting to quiet before securing the crown._

It's such a weight to carry, my nephew, but you bear it so well.

 _'Thank you, Uncle.' Their eyes meet in the mirror, hold and don't waver. Zuko breathes deeply. 'I'm ready.'_

* * *

 **After the War VII**

As the sky lightens, they watch together as the night crawls away from the day.

Katara swallows and the sound clatters in the silence between them. 'I should go,' she whispers into the skin of the firebender's chest.

Zuko's arm, around her waist, tightens. 'When will I see you again?'

Heartache is one pain her healing cannot touch. She should know, she's tried. 'I don't think…' _This can't go on, you know this can't go on_.

He knows. She knows he knows. 'What if I offered you the ambassador's position?'

'And have Bato fired so I can occasionally sleep with the Firelord?' She can't help the steely note that creeps into her voice.

'Maybe uncle—'

'Zuko.' She turns to face him, tries a smile that doesn't fit quite right.

He kisses her, nodding jerkily. He doesn't meet her gaze, looks everywhere but at her. It's fitting, Katara thinks, how quietly someone's hope can shatter.

Pulling him close— _one last hug,_ _not enough, it will never be enough_ — she whispers the words she found on her journey here.

'One day, when we're old and the responsibilities of our nations are on our grandchildren's shoulders, we're going to buy ourselves a tea shop next to your uncle's in Ba Sing Se and have tea on the roof every night.' His hands are hard, bruising, when they grip her elbows. 'I will always love you. I will always be your friend. Anytime you need the Painted Lady, or there's something the Water Tribe can help the Fire Nation with, I'll be there.'

He tries to hold onto her, but Katara does them both the favour of letting go.

She steps back.

She dresses though her paint is smeared beyond recovery. Across her skin. Across his.

As silently as she came, she leaves.

Behind her, above her, through the window to the Firelord's bedroom, comes the scent of smoke.

* * *

 *** dodges the thrown vegetables and angry comments * I'M SORRY OKAY! There's incompatibilities with a foreign Firelady in this version of the post-war Fire Nation! They've _just_ lost a war they've been told they're winning for the last 100 years. Ain't no way there's positive foreign sentiment (look at anti-Islamic sentiment following 9/11 – people fear what they do not understand, y'all). I made no promises of happy endings, I still don't! You'll just have to read on to find out ;)**

 **Side Note: Does anyone else get gay vibes from Toph? I know she crushes on Sokka in canon but my girl has always been strongly lesbian in my headcanon. So is Mai. But she's also the daughter of a noble family and I don't think they would pass up the opportunity to pimp their daughter out to the Firelord. Zuko didn't want to have to go through with the marriage with a stranger** **—** **he chose Mai out of all the noblewomen pushed on him because he wanted a friend.**


	80. Chapter 80

**Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit I**

The Painted Lady and the Blue Spirit fade almost to legend in the wake of the war. The world is too preoccupied with healing and peace to worry over wartime vigilantes. No new rumours surface, not in the tundra where the princess of fire paces her icy cell, not in the deserts of the Earth Kingdom, or the islands of the Fire Nation.

Not until they're needed.

The first time is during a conflict between the Avatar and the Firelord in the colonial city of Yu Dao. The Painted Lady appears and breaks up a fight between the two sides. After that, the Blue Spirit is seen at her side, though not nearly as frequently as during the war. When loyalists make a grab for the throne, attack the Firelady and Princess Izumi, the Painted Lady's justice is the sharpest blade.

In return, the young Firelord makes her the patron spirit of the royal family.

And the people of the Fire Nation? Worship spreads through the islands. The Painted Lady can be seen in every temple and shrine.

She becomes legend.

* * *

 **Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit II**

Her painted alter-ego runs nights alone more often than not these days. Katara has found serenity in those solitary hours under the moon's rule.

And occasionally, when she's in town, the Blue Spirit joins her again.

'You spend too much time behind your desk,' she teases her companion late one night. It's six years since the madness wrought by that comet, since Ozai's death took the goofy boy from the iceberg and made him into Avatar Aang, since her brother became an international dignitary, since the boy she loves became husband to another woman. He's still climbing the shingles towards her and its clear he's spent more of the last six years in administration rather than midnight brawls on rooftops.

'Not by choice,' he puffs from behind the mask.

Above them, the moon is full enough to burst. Katara swells with it, bends easily to pull him up beside her.

'Getting old, Firelord?' she whispers, grinning at the grimacing mask. 'Old enough to retire to our tea house?'

He doesn't reply; she doesn't blame him. The pain of what could have been sits between them; an itch unscratched for six long years.

'I'm thinking of following your example actually,' she continues quickly, turning away to rummage in her satchel. 'Sokka's threatening to arrange me a marriage if I don't come home for more than a month at a time.' She hands him the teapot and sets the two cups between them. 'I just get so restless in the South. I might take up teaching again for half the year. Travel the rest. I'm thinking of taking some of our benders to the Earth Kingdom and setting up a travelling hospital. What do you think?'

The Blue Spirit is watching her, unreadable as ever. 'The Fire Sages have asked me to persuade you to spend a few years teaching at the university. They want you and Uncle Iroh to help develop more dual-elemental moves.'

She blinks. A job offer was not the reply she expected. 'They asked for me?'

The Blue Spirit seems to be watching the moon. 'They offered the position, a four-year contract. I… I suggested you.'

'Here?' She takes the frothing teapot from him, her heart hammering. 'A waterbender living in the Fire Nation?'

'I think you'll find the Fire Nation's attitude towards the other nations has… changed since the end of the war,' her companion points out, tracing the edge of the tile beside him. 'Izumi could use a friend… Rumour has it the Firelord could, too.'

She nearly drops the tea leaves. Maybe the guilt will never leave her. Guilt over not coming quickly enough, of not doing enough. When the Firelady's health worsened that fateful night, the summer storms kept boats out of the harbour for a week, including the Southern canoe carrying a worried waterbender. Mai had never fully recovered from childbirth and the loyalist's attack had sped her decline. Within weeks Zuko and Princess Izumi had been cloaked in white while the Fire Sages set the slight figure alight. Katara has never quite forgiven herself for her aversion to the porcelain woman, or the uneasy mix of grief and relief when she'd received word of Mai's death.

Zuko had though. He'd forgiven her, he'd understood. He always does when it comes to her. _You can't control the weather, Katara_ , as his daughter wept silent tears at his side.

She hands him the tea cup, holding her own between both palms. Closing her eyes, she stretches her senses beyond the liquid in the ceramic mugs, beyond the steady pulse of Zuko's blood, outwards, upwards, downwards… The full moon helps, but mostly it's the seed his suggestion plants in her: hope. To work with the Fire Nation, to develop bending forms that heal rather than harm, to make the element of power as fluid the oceans…

* * *

 **Epilogue: The Painted Lady & the Blue Spirit III**

 _I think you'll find the Fire Nation's attitude towards the other nations has changed_.

'Your uncle,' she says, sipping the ginseng. 'Has he accepted?'

'A part-time tenure.'

'So he can be between here and his teashop?'

'Exactly.'

She's been restless for years, ever since Aang struck Ozai down. Her tundra home is painfully, restlessly small after travelling the world. This could be _something_. This could be… This could be something big.

'I've had this idea,' she begins and the tea in her hands sloshes with her excitement. 'To use firebending to heal.' She meets his eyes, those of the mask at least, and winks. 'When I was struggling with the darker side of waterbending, a friend once told me to explore all sides of my bending.'

The Blue Spirit becomes Zuko with the twitch of a hand; he's watching her, burning. 'You'll stay?'

The full moons pulls at her. With a grin, she pushes back. 'I'll stay.'

* * *

 **Epilogue: Customs of the Fire Nation & the Water Tribe**

Zuko finds them in Izumi's room.

'I like it like this,' his daughter is saying with the first lick of genuine joy since her mother's passing. She is turning her head before the mirror, first left, then right, and left again. 'Can you do those loopies Uncle Sokka was telling me about?'

The Firelord pauses. _Uncle Sokka…_

Katara is still in her gown, the one Zuko privately vowed to burn the seams of once the party was over, burn them away until he could peel it from her like a skin from its banana. She is smiling at Izumi, bending forward over the girl's shoulder to bring twin strands back behind her head in a distantly familiar style.

'Did your Uncle Sokka tell you why girls wear their hair like this?' she asks as she twists the strands back into the long braid of silken hair.

'Because it is Water Tribe tradition for young girls who aren't yet of marrying age to pin back their hair. Loose hair is for women who haven't yet chosen their husbands.' Zuko's chest swells with pride at her knowledge, recited with an ease he'd never managed as a boy. He had no doubt she'd surpass him as Firelord when her time came. 'But what about married women?'

Katara pulls a pin from her own hair to secure the left loop in place. 'Women who are married or promised are free to wear their hair any way they like,' she explains, tugging on the end of Izumi's braid fondly.

'But you wear your hair different every day and you're not married.'

Zuko shifts in the doorway and Katara's blue eyes find his. 'No, I'm not.'

Izumi pulls her gown straight, lifting her chin to twist before the mirror. 'Mishi says that Papa is changing the law so he can marry you.'

Katara drops her gaze from Zuko's with a smile, tucking the girl's ruffled collar back into place. 'Miss Mishi is very observant. What do you think?'

Her face doesn't change, not a twitch. Not a flicker. 'I think I would like it,' she says levelly, glancing at Katara in the mirror, 'if you were my… if Papa married you.'

Katara folds then, to her knees, hugging the girl around her shoulders as they grin at one another's reflections; the child shyly, the woman kindly. 'I think I would like that, too.'

Zuko steps into the room as though they're bloodbending him forward, this girl, this woman. Izumi turns, startled. 'Papa!' She glances guiltily at Katara. 'We only left the party because Kuza and Fumi pulled my hair and ruined it. Master Katara was just…'

He sweeps her up, hugs her tighter than she likes now that she's six. 'You look like a Water Tribe warrior.'

She squirms free, straightening her silk gown with a light frown. 'The Southern Water Tribe warriors have wolf's tails, Papa. This is how waterbenders wear their hair.'

'Oh, I know,' he tells her lightly. 'I once met a fierce waterbending master from the South who nearly beat me every time I fought her.'

Katara scoffs and cuffs him on the arm. 'Nearly?'

'"You rise with the moon, I rise with the sun,"' he reminds her, smiling dryly.

Izumi wrinkles her nose. 'Didn't Master Katara beat you earlier this week? Mishi said she saw you sparring when she was changing my linens and that the Royal Guard would have to arrest Master Katara if she hurt you.'

Zuko sighs. 'Your maid says a lot of things, little spark. Try not to believe all of them.'

'But I _did_ beat him that time,' Katara adds smugly, crouching by Izumi to thread the girl's braid over her shoulder. 'Are you ready to return to the party? The Fire Sages say the first storm of summer is coming tonight and Grampa Iroh will be looking for you.'

'I know! I know the way!' the girl exclaims and, in a fit of true childishness, she rushes out the door and down the hall.

'The princess has spoken,' Katara says with a slow smile. 'How did you sneak away?'

'I didn't.' He produces a carved mask from beneath his silken robes. 'The Firelord has retired under the duress of his uncle. I have _business_. In the city.'

A smile like the waxing moon lights Katara's face. 'I'll be five minutes,' she says in a hush while the whites of the Blue Spirit's mask gleam in the candlelight. 'I'm sure your uncle could make my excuses, too.'

Indeed, he could. And did.

The Painted Lady and Blue Spirit spend the night spilling the blood of criminals, drinking tea on the palace roof, and later— when the thunder started— they were in bed before Izumi stumbled through the doorway to snuggle down between them.

She doesn't question Katara's presence. She's too busy tucking herself in beneath the waterbender's arm and her father's side.

* * *

 **I really struggled to stop writing this (as the last few lengthy chapters indicate)! I had this whole bit about Katara and Izumi's growing relationship mirroring what was happening for our waterbender politically** **—** **the challenges and setbacks of becoming the Firelady, the progress and successes. How having a full-blooded Fire Nation Crown Princess made Zuko and Katara's union easier for their opponents to digest (but you better believe they had a bunch of adorable babies). How Katara and Iroh worked alongside the Fire Sages at the Caldera University (and delegates from Ba Sing Se University) to develop formal scrolls on glassbending, bloodbending, metalbending and a whole lot more. If you guys want a little more of this, don't despair. I'm not ly done with this AU, but I make no promises for follow up stories right now. I quite like how this ends (naw for blended families) but could probably be persuaded to give a few more scenes a go. You guys lemme know what you want! I would do anything for you, lovely readers!**


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